


At The End Of The World

by endofadream



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-15 22:40:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/854797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endofadream/pseuds/endofadream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Shooting Star" AU: The shooter, a man, gets into the choir room and singles out Blaine. With the threat of a gun, the club is forced to do nothing but watch helplessly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Heaven's Grief Brings Hell's Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Let me start this off with a special warning: this chapter contains **slurs** , **slut-shaming** , **explicit rape** , and **heavy gun violence**.
> 
> It is not implied, it is not alluded to: it happens. This story, though no Kurt is featured yet, will be about Blaine's recovery after the fact. This isn't an easy story, guys, so please please please heed these warnings before continuing. Crossposted to my Tumblr of the same name, FFN, and S&C.

Sam huddles close to Blaine as the first doorknob of the choir room jiggles, then the other. Everyone's holding their breath, and Sam feels the rush of adrenaline light up the tips of his fingers all the way down to his toes.

Blaine's muscles flex as he clenches his hands and peers over the top of the piano before ducking back down. He looks over at the two teachers helplessly. "Do you think he can get in?"

Beside him, Mr. Schue shakes his head. His brows are furrowed, eyes wide and shining in the dim light offered from the windows high above them. "I don't know, Blaine."

Brittany is over with Coach Bieste, and the rest of the club is huddled to Sam's left, all carefully hidden by one of the filing cabinets pushed in front of the drum set. The metronome still ticks on the floor where Blaine had knocked it when he'd tried to move the piano. Tina and Artie are sitting behind Sam, Artie's wheelchair partially blocking them from view.

The handles jiggle again. Sam feels his heart jump, feels it pound with the rushing blood in his ears. He trembles, mimicking Blaine's movement as he clenches and unclenches his fists against his knees. The shots still echo in Sam's mind, three resounding cracks followed by screams, and he feels bile rise in the back of his throat. Why isn't anyone here yet?

The handle jiggles again, and Marley lets out a little scream. They shush her, and Sam feels the hairs on his arm prickle as it jiggles again, followed by a thud, then another, then another, until it finally is forced open.

A man steps in, tall and broad-shouldered. His hair is black and his eyes are brown and beady with intent as he sweeps his gaze over the room. In his hand he holds a gun, heavy and silver-and-black. Sam doesn't know a lot about guns, but it looks powerful. Beside him Blaine stiffens, setting his jaw.

A smirk, chilling and unsettling, and the man stops in the center of the room. When Mr, Schue begins to stand up the gun is immediately pointed at him, and when Mr. Schue doesn't sit down right away Blaine tugs on his sweater and frantically whispers, "Mr. Schue, _please_. Sit down."

"Well, good afternoon to you all," the man drawls. His voice is chilling and high-pitched. There's a scar arching over his left brow. He points the barrel of his gun at every single person he sees, and Sam stares him down defiantly when it's pointed at him. Blaine shrinks back when it sweeps over him, and for a second the man hesitates, something flitting over his face before disappearing, like a cloud sliding over the sun.  
He takes a few steps forward towards the piano. "You," he says, pointing the gun back at Blaine. "Stand up."

Blaine looks around, panicked, before obeying. His legs tremble when he stands, and his throat bobs as he swallows hard. He holds his chin up as the man looks over him, and Sam admires his calm, collected demeanor. He knows that Blaine is terrified—they all are. But he doesn't cry, doesn't let even his lip twitch or his chin wobble.

"What's your name?"

"Blaine."

"Well, why don't you come on up here, Blaine?" the man asks, sickeningly sweet and encouraging. Blaine looks down at Mr. Schue, at the rest of the members in the room, with a torn look, fear and indecision flickering across his face as he stands halfway up, trembling and silent.

"Now," the man says, a command this time, and Blaine stumbles out from behind the piano, standing in the middle of the room and looking so small next to this huge man. He doesn't look up, doesn't meet the eyes of their shooter, and Sam feels his hands clench into fists at his side.

"Good boy." Sam gags as a broad hand curves around Blaine's cheek. Blaine visibly flinches and shudders, closing his eyes. He shifts on his feet, grabbing at the hem of his shirt. The man stares, predatory, and Sam's gut begins to twist, every warning center in his brain lighting up. A hand cups Blaine's chin, and Blaine stiffens but allows his head to be lifted up, stares straight into the eyes of the man and holds his ground.

The man only smiles back. "I want you to get on your hands and knees for me, Blaine. Hurry up now: this gun is still loaded."

Blaine swallows hard, letting out a whimper, and drops to his knees, hesitating slightly before placing his palms on the cold linoleum. He's facing everyone, and when Sam meets his eyes he sees fear, humiliation. Blaine's brow is furrowed deep, and his breath is hitching. He flinches when the man steps up behind him.

A broad palm is placed over Blaine's lower back, fingers curling around the hem of Blaine's uniform shirt. An involuntary low growl rises up in the back of Sam's shirt as those fingers go lower, rest over the thick band of Blaine's track pants.

The room is still and hushed, holding their breath. Blaine's arms tremble, muscles twitching. He holds Sam's gaze, then drops his head and stares at the floor.

_Hold it together, man,_ Sam thinks desperately, feeling like a lifeline has been severed when Blaine looks away from him. He _needs_ to keep Blaine present.

"On second thought..." That cold voice fills the room again, and the man taps his bottom lip thoughtfully. He leers down at Blaine, and says, so chillingly demanding, "Get on your knees."

Blaine swallows before pushing himself off the floor. He doesn't hesitate, doesn't try to disarm the man even though Sam knows Blaine has a killer right hook, and that might be the most disturbing thing of all. He sways slightly on his knees and stares at the far wall; he only moves when the man tells him to, shifting slightly over to the side and lifting his head up. The man steps up to him, runs a hand down his cheek again and smiles. His gun hangs limply at his side, and he asks Blaine as he goes for his fly, "I bet you're a fag, aren't you? Have to be, with that fruity uniform on. Have you ever sucked a cock before, Blaine?"

Blaine whimpers alarmingly, but he doesn't shake his head. The man laughs, says, "That's what I thought."

He undoes his jeans one-handed and pulls his half-hard cock from his underwear, holds it in his hand, and Sam fights back the sudden, quick rise of bile. He can see Blaine's eyes widen, can see the pleading way they look back up at the man. "Please..." he whispers. He shakes, trembles. "Please, don't, I—"

The man grabs the back of Blaine's head, forces him forward, and Blaine barely manages to drop his jaw in time before the man pushes his cock in. He chokes, gags wetly, and his eyes shut tight as his cheeks hollow. The man groans, low and pleased, and tugs at Blaine's hair, pushes him down further, then pulls him back until Blaine is bobbing his head as tears slip silently down his face. When he pulls back Blaine is choking, gasping, his chin slick with saliva, his eyes burning red and glistening with tears.

"God, fucking perfect,” the man sneers with a sadistic grin. “I'm telling you, you little queers really do give the best blowjobs." He rubs the slick head of his cock over Blaine's lips, pushes at Blaine's back until he falls forward, palms hitting the cold linoleum with an echoing slap.

The man tucks himself back in, a formality for reasons Sam doesn't want to understand, and moves behind Blaine again. Fingers curl around the band of Blaine's track pants, begin to tug them down, and to Sam's left Marley gasps, hands flying to her mouth. Mr. Schue closes his eyes helplessly, looks away. Sam can't look away, feels the bile rise up in the back of his throat but he can't.

Blaine whimpers, begins to squirm. He doesn't dare look back, but his voice is hoarse but pinched, flimsy and tear-filled as he begs, "No, please, don't…don't do this to me."

His pants are tugged lower, and Blaine's eyes are horrified, wide and bottomless as they well with tears that shimmer and wobble before sliding down his cheeks. "Please, stop," he begs. "Oh, god, please, you don't have to do thi—"

His words end abruptly when there's the shining, cold silver of the gun pressing hard against his temple. Blaine gasps, going completely still, and this time when the shooter speaks there is no false pretense, no cover of sweet insincerity. There is only cold, hard-edged malice. "If you or anyone else wants to leave this room alive then you're going to have to shut the _fuck_ up."

The metronome still ticks in the background. Sam's heart pounds loud and hard. Mr. Schue has dropped to rest his back against the cabinets. He still isn't looking. No one else is. No one else can do anything. Blaine's shoulders heave with silent sobs, tears sliding to his chin to drip off onto the floor, but when he meets Sam's eyes there is no anger. What's there scares Sam even more than rage.

It's emptiness.

It's acceptance.

Blaine's pants are tugged the rest of the way down, pooling at his knees; he lets out a sob that echoes and echoes and never seems to leave. The man gets to his knees and strokes over the bared skin of Blaine's ass. He lets out a pleased hum as Blaine shivers, bites his lip and closes his eyes tighter. "Very nice," he murmurs. The barrel of the gun digs harder into Blaine's temple as he gives Blaine's ass a light slap.  
He looks up at the room, challenging. His free hand goes to his zipper, pulls it down again, each snick of the metal teeth like a drumbeat, a final march. Blaine winces, stiffening at the noise. Sam watches him take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"You're all going to watch as I fuck him," the man says. Mr. Schue inhales sharply, and he isn't the only one. But with the gun to Blaine's head, the empty, pleading look in his eyes, no one speaks up. They can't.

_We're all so helpless, so powerless. Is this what it's really like to feel this way?_

"No one will say anything; otherwise I'll blow his fucking brains out."

Blaine sobs.

Sam feels sick.

_God, why isn't anyone helping us? Where are the police? Has it really only been ten minutes since the lockdown?_

He inches forward, resting his shoulder against one of the piano's legs. Blaine looks up, sniffing, and Sam discreetly nods his head, says without words _I'm here. Just watch me. You'll be okay._

He doesn't pay attention as the man spits on his hand and slicks his dick. He holds Blaine's gaze and does his best to communicate what he can't. Blaine looks so small and helpless like this, so unlike the boy Sam knows, that it makes him want to scream, to run forward and knock the gun out of the guy's hand.

But he can't. He knows he can't. Sam just doesn't want to see Blaine get hurt.

When the man pushes in, Blaine tenses, screams, haunting and high-pitched and agonized as his back goes stiff and his shoulders hunch. It dissolves into a whimpering, throaty sob, one hand curled into a fist on the floor. The man presses the gun harder to his temple and Blaine quiets, whimpering instead as the man pushes all the way into him. The tears slip down, faster and faster, and Blaine's eyes are wide, glassy, and full of fear, of pain.

"God, that's it," the man groans, gripping hard to Blaine's hip with his free hand. Blaine bites his lip, another tear streaking down his red face, but he doesn't look away from Sam. His hands clench, nails scratching at the linoleum, but he keeps his mouth tightly shut even as strangled sound after strangled sound leaves his throat.

The slap of skin echoes in the choir room, and Sam's anger grows, overpowers his nausea as each second passes. He tries not to notice the gun still pressed to Blaine's temple, tries not to notice the way Blaine begins to pant, breathing harsh through his nose first before letting his jaw fall slack, his eyes half-lidded as his forehead scrunches up. He looks dazed, unaware, almost out of it.

Blaine's body moves, sways, with the force of the man's thrusts. Someone in the room lets out a tiny sob, but the man doesn't seem to hear it as he yanks Blaine closer to him, breathes out, low and rumbling like distant thunder, "You like that, don't you? Filthy slut." He lets out a derisive snort, lets go of Blaine's hip and reaches under him. Sam doesn't look away as Blaine finally lets out a short, quiet moan, two more tears slipping down his face to drip to the floor.

The man laughs in earnest, shifting and pushing in harder, harder, as his hand moves and Blaine begins to lose his impassivity as his eyes finally close and his head finally drops, his breath harsh and panting under his moans. A squeeze to Blaine's dick that has Blaine letting out a keening whimper and the man says, "Yeah, you're just a fucking slut who likes a nice cock up his ass. Go on, slut; fuck yourself on my cock for me. Let everyone watching see that that's all you're good for."

He barks to the room, Blaine swallowing hard and squeezing his eyes shut as he pushes back and swivels his hips, "What do you think of your precious little twink fag now?" He removes the gun from Blaine's temple and sets it on the ground, pushing it away out of anyone's reach, and grabs Blaine's hips with both hands, fucking in. Blaine cries out, unable to keep it bottled up, and falls to his elbows, letting out a moaned sob each time the man's hips slap against his ass.

The metronome ticks.

Sam's heart beats.

Everything is silent except for the man, and each noise, each slap of skin and each grunt, is like the report of those first few gunshots.

Sam's heart breaks.

_C'mon, Blaine, just look at me, man. Look at me and see that it's all going to be okay._ Blaine's sobs, loud and ceaseless; the man's grunts, low and primitive. Marley buries her face in Jake's chest; Kitty looks at the wall, her jaw set. Her face shines with tears, but there's a fire in her eyes that Sam hasn't quite seen before. He looks back at Blaine, begs silently to get his attention, to do anything other than sit here helplessly.

Blaine doesn't look up.

And then Sam can hear it, quiet and barely audible, "No, no, no, no, god, _no_."

The man stills when he comes, gripping Blaine's hips hard, so hard, his head tipped back as his body jerks. Blaine scrabbles at the floor, nails scratching as he shakes his head, begs, "Don't come in me, please, please, please don't, anything but that, please, no…"

A hand disappearing under him, and then he's tensing and moaning, letting out a hoarse sob. The man's hand moves, quick and rough, and Blaine's hips jerk toward it, back arching even as he repeats no over and over under his breath, under his labored breathing and his hitching cries and his traitorous moans. He collapses, the upper half of his torso dipping to the floor, his body sagging weakly.

The man doesn't say anything as he pulls out, tucks himself back in and stands up. He quickly reaches for his discarded gun before anyone else can. He holds it up, looking down at Blaine curled and collapsed on the ground, at the rest of them huddled behind furniture and cabinets.

He smirks, cocking the gun, and says, "It was nice seeing you all."

Says, toeing carelessly at Blaine's calf with his boot, "You should call me sometime, gorgeous."

Sam clenches his fists, stands up, but the man is gone and out the door, his footsteps echoing down the hallway before they trail off into nothing. For a few moments, everyone is too numb to move. Breathing is all anyone can do.

"Oh, god," Sam hears Bieste mumble as she stands up, her eyes wide, her face pale. She brings a hand to her mouth like she's going to be sick. She's staring at the floor.

Marley still clutches to Jake, Ryder awkwardly rubbing her back. Unique stares at nothing, resolutely not looking at the floor, and Kitty is standing now, though still staring at the wall. Her expression is unreadable, but when Marley hugs her, she returns it eagerly.

Mr. Schue grabs the metronome from the floor, silencing it. Sam unzips his hoodie, kneeling down beside Blaine. Blaine doesn't look up, doesn't acknowledge that anyone is there. He's shivering, tiny little tremors that wrack his body; Sam carefully drapes his hoodie over Blaine's lower half, running a hand over the hard gel of his hair.

"You're gonna be okay," he whispers. "He's gone. I'm here. We'll get you help and you'll be okay, Blaine. I promise. I'm never going to let anyone hurt you again."

Blaine slowly lifts his head. His face is still red, the rims of his eyes swollen. His thick lashes are clumped together, and unshed tears threaten to join the streaks already down his cheeks.

There is emptiness in his eyes, and Sam lets out a frustrated noise, fighting back tears and pushing past the lump in his throat. "We're gonna get him," he says fiercely. Blaine just blinks up at him. "We're gonna make him pay for what he did to you."

Blaine just shivers, lets his eyes drop back to the floor. He clenches his hands, like he isn't even aware they're attached to him, and says, timid, "I'm so cold."  
Blaine is the strongest, bravest person that Sam knows. Sam's always admired his courage, his ability to get back up after being pushed down. He's envied Blaine's spunk, his positive outlook on life. They've become best friends, and Sam doesn't think he can imagine his life without Blaine anymore. Through petty fights and a breakup soothed with late-night comic book movies and video game marathons, Sam's come to see both the best and worst of Blaine.

But he's never seen Blaine so… _broken_.

Sam swallows, feels a tear slip down his face. He tries his best to smile, a flimsy thing, and rubs at Blaine's shoulder, rearranging his hoodie. "We'll get you warmed up, dude. We'll get you all better."  
Blaine doesn't say anything, just stares at nothing.

Sam wonders what he's thinking.

Then, he realizes, he doesn't.

He just wants to stop thinking at all.


	2. But We Are Alive

Sirens, shrill and piercing, and loud voices, authoritative and commanding as they echo down the hallways. Sam is barely aware of them as he sits cross-legged on the floor beside Blaine, whose eyes have long since closed and who hasn’t said anything as time stretches on. He focuses on the rise and fall of Blaine’s shoulders, the serenity brought by his closed eyes. He wonders, again, what Blaine is thinking. He wonders, again, if he really wants to know.

He doesn’t.

When he closes his eyes, he can only see Blaine—brave, all the way up until the very end. When he lets himself think, he goes through every possible scenario where he could have helped instead of doing _nothing_. When he lets himself hear, it’s pleas and whimpers, _no_ s and disgustingly animalistic grunts.

He wants to say he’s sorry, but his tongue is a thick, jumbled thing in his mouth. His words tie themselves uselessly into knots that fall back down his throat. He swallows them with bitterness. He feels like a failure as a friend, and though he knows that it is irrational he can’t help it, can’ help but hate himself for being okay when Blaine is not.

“Mr. Schue,” Marley says, her voice shocking in the room, “aren’t they coming for us?”

They could all leave, go to help instead of waiting for it, but no one wants to leave Blaine. Not now. Not yet.

“They’ll be here,” Mr. Schue tells her, but his voice is flat, monotonous, like all his hope is gone. He sits on a chair, his head in his hands. He is the picture of hopelessness, a leader suddenly stricken and unable to go on, and Sam can’t blame him. There is staticky numbness in his body, in his head.

Everyone else remains hushed even though the danger has since passed. It’s oddly silent now without the metronome, that reminder that all of their hearts are still beating. The empty arms of Sam’s hoodie splay cross the floor like dead snakes. Blaine’s legs are curled slightly so his knees and part of his calves disappear under the green fabric, and his pants are riding up to show the white of his socks above the tops of his sneakers. He looks so small, so… _young_.

It’s only early afternoon. Sam recalls Blaine’s bright smile as they’d walked into the choir room, the video game marathon they’d been planning for the weekend. He isn’t sure if he’ll ever see that smile, so untainted and carefree, again. There is chance that he won’t, and it makes Sam’s stomach twist up, makes his heart and his very bones ache. It had been a good day, and everyone had been happy and excited to rehearse, to be together in a room where even the Cheerios had a reason to smile and laugh and let go and be equals with the rest of them.

Voice, then, louder now as they echo in the empty hallway outside the room, and Sam’s head snaps up as the handles on the doors jiggle ( _no, please, no,_ irrational thoughts, ingrained-instinctive fear that Sam knows everyone is going to feel for months, years, _not him again_ ) and Mr. Schue jumps up to open them. Two SWAT officers come in, then two policemen.

None of the kids speak. Mr. Schue looks at the men blankly. An officer, the one that looks older, looks around the room with an eagle-eyed gaze, a rushed sense of desperation. Sam wonders if they’ve found anyone else hurt, trapped, scared and shivering like a lost puppy. The officer speaks and asks, all formalities, “Has anyone here been hurt?”

It’s the question no one wants to answer. The question no one knows _how_ to answer.

Glances cast at Blaine and Sam on the floor, and Sam immediately wants to cover Blaine, to protect him from the scrutinous eyes of these men. Blaine doesn’t need this. Blaine doesn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve any of this, and now Sam is left fumbling with a broken china figure and Elmer’s glue, a child with useless, clumsy hands and pieces that are too small or that just don’t fit right.

“Has he—?” the officer, younger with short black hair, begins to ask. He’s looking down at Blaine, then back up at Mr. Schue. There is skepticism rife in his eyes, bright like the sharp hone of a laser point. He’s asking for physically injured people, and from the outside, from anyone who hadn’t been in this room, Blaine doesn’t look hurt. Scared, but not hurt. Everyone is scared; the officers don’t have time for that.  
Sam lifts his head, raises his chin and silently challenges the officer to say something, to go away. His hand on Blaine’s shoulder, warm skin through the polyester, and Blaine barely flinches. His breath stutters, quick bursts, but he doesn’t move.

Mr. Schue hesitates, looks at Sam, and then nods, leaning in close and whispering it to the officer. He knows no one else in the room, though they had bore witness to it, wants to hear it. Hearing it is a reminder that it’s real, a reminder that what happened to Blaine can’t be taken back and won’t ever be forgotten.

The officer sends away for a medical technician and an ambulance attendant. He is studiously impassive and professional about it. In a way, Sam is glad for that. In another way, he is furious. Why isn’t anyone else acting like this is as serious as it is? Why doesn’t anyone else care like he does?

The lines around the officer’s mouth have become tighter, and there’s now a furrow between his brows, deep and serious. There’s a slight set to his jaw now the longer he stares at Blaine that Sam recognizes easily as anger.

The technician and attendant, both men, don’t take long to arrive, and Sam has to step back, hands guiding him, when they do. He doesn’t go easily, insisting that Blaine will want him there, that Blaine will need him. He doesn’t speak of his role during the ordeal, the tether he’d tried so hard to be and had ultimately failed at. The thought gives him a greasy, grimy feeling in the back of his throat. His eyes sting sharply again with tears, and briefly the world wobbles and melds together like a fresh painting exposed to water. He blinks, and everything steadies, clears.

Blaine is still on the floor, hands clenched into fists on the linoleum. His face is still red, still slick. He is still broken, still hurt. Something has been stolen from him, ripped away like a playground bully stealing another’s toy, though Sam wishes that it were as simple as that. This is something carved out of Blaine with a jagged-edged knife, hot and cruel and merciless, sloppy and uncaring, with its work. This cannot be replaced with a trip to the toy store. This cannot be replaced at all.

The technician crouches down, gently touches Blaine’s shoulder. Blaine stirs, blinking open his eyes and lifting his head up slightly from the floor. There’s a moment of bright clarity, honey gold warm in the light, before his eyes deaden again, going flat and staring at nothing. They speak to him in gentle tones, soothing him, but the moment the attendant touches the hoodie draped across Blaine’s waist the flatness to his eyes disappears to be replaced with hysteria, panic, fear in all their wide-eyed, unfocused glory.

“Get off me!” he screams, sitting up. His voice echoes, rings out and beats harshly at Sam’s eardrums. Blaine lashes out with a well-curved right hook that is seems to be directed at nothing, but the two men jump back in surprise anyway at the unexpected reaction. The jacket falls, exposing the bare skin of Blaine’s hip, the curve of his pelvis, and Sam doesn’t look. Blaine’s voice edges higher, shriller, and he starts to cry again as he looks around wildly. “Get away from me, get _away_.” It’s like he doesn’t even know that he’s in the choir room.

“We’re just trying to help you,” the attendant says. He’s young, probably in his twenties, and has a soft voice that reminds Sam of Kurt—and _god_ , Kurt, what will he think? Someone is going to have to tell him, because Sam knows how much Blaine still cares about him, how much Blaine will _need_ him.

The attendant’s eyes are kind, and he doesn’t try to reach out as he steps in closer. “Blaine, you’re safe now, I promise. The man isn’t here anymore.”

“I can still feel him in me,” Blaine gasps, shudders. His face pales, and for a moment a strained look crosses it like he’s going to be sick. It passes and he squeezes his eyes shut, like he’s reliving, and shakes his head like a pesky fly is bothering him, back-forth back-forth quickly. He grabs the jacket so it doesn’t fall any further and curls back in on himself, a hunched comma half on the floor, half lifted up. His shoulders shake, his breath hitches, and his words slur, rise and fall like the swell of a tide as he begins to edge further and further into incoherency. “He’s still—oh god, no, _nononono_. Get him out _get him out, please_!”

“Blaine,” the man says again, still unfailingly patient and soothing, “you’re okay. He’s gone. He’s not going to hurt you again.”

Blaine shakes his head, rakes his fingers through the hold of his gel and grips. The jacket falls again, and Sam knows that Blaine must be exposed from the back, and he’s glad that the only ones who could see are the men trying to calm him down. “No, no, please, no. Don’t touch me again. I don’t want it. Please.” Another sob, deep and wrenching, another shake of the head. “ _Please_.”

The room feels drained of air as everyone collectively holds their breath. Bieste looks away, but now there are tears in her eyes. Mr. Schue still doesn’t look up. No one knows what to do. Sam can’t reach out, can’t say anything. He knows it’d be useless, anyway.

“We just want to get you into the ambulance,” the technician finally says. His voice is deeper but just as soothing and caring as the attendant’s. His eyes are brown, kind. “We’ll get you to a hospital, son, and get you checked out. You’re gonna be okay.”

Blaine lifts his head up, stares blankly at them, then looks around the room like he’s just realizing where he is. He trembles, little shivers that wrack his body, and this time when the technician and attendant move in he doesn’t fight them off. He lets them stand him up, and he grips onto their shoulders for support as they gently tug up his pants. Blaine looks out at everything and nothing all at once, the humiliation long gone now. No one meets his eyes. Sam looks away until he’s covered back up and his hoodie is tossed to the floor.

“Is this okay?” the technician asks, keeping a steady arm around Blaine’s torso to slide under his arm and support him.

Blaine nods, then says, small and tremulous and so very unlike the boy of eighteen that he really is, “I just want my mommy. Please.”

Sam squeezes his eyes shut, bites hard onto the inside of his cheek until the coppery tang of blood spills warm onto his tongue.

“We’ll call your parents,” the technician promises. “As soon as we get you to the hospital. Can you walk for me?”

Blaine takes a shaky step, wobbles and cries out in pain as his knees buckle and he nearly falls. He shakes his head as another tear slides down his face, and his voice is endlessly apologetic as he whimpers, says, “I can’t. I can’t, sir, I’m sorry—”

“It’s okay, son. It’s okay. Don’t worry. We’ll get you a stretcher, all right? Don’t apologize. I’m very proud of you for trying.”

They call for a stretcher, and when it comes they gently lift Blaine onto it. He whimpers in pain when he lies down, stretching his neck back and letting out a short groan of pain, but he doesn’t say anything else as the officers talk to Bieste and Mr. Schue. He closes his eyes, keeps them that way, and Sam is barely aware of a hand on his shoulder. He turns, sees that it’s Jake’s, sees that Jake is crying, a single tear rolling down his face to disappear under the curve of his chin.

The technician and the attendant roll Blaine out of the room, the officers and SWAT men following, but Sam doesn’t watch him go, just listens to the squeaky wheels of the stretcher fade down the hallway. He looks down at the floor, feels the coppery twang swill around his mouth.

There is blood where Blaine had been lying.


	3. I've Got The Scars From Tomorrow

Kurt's phone begins buzzing while he's in his evening History of Theatre class; he gives an apologetic look to the professor before ducking out of the room, phone clutched in his fist. Leaning against the wall just outside the classroom he looks at the caller ID, eyebrows rising when he sees that it's Sam. Though they'd lived together briefly, he and Kurt had never really sparked up anything other than a general friendship, and Kurt's sure he can tick off the amount of times they've talked on the phone on one hand.

He leans against the wall and accepts the call, bringing his phone to his ear. "You called in the middle of class. This better be important."

_"It is."_ Kurt immediately becomes alert at the tenseness of Sam's voice and he straightens up.

"Sam?" Kurt asks, clutching his phone a little harder. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

Hesitance, then a deep, shaky breath that crackles the speakers. Kurt's heart begins to pound a little harder, and his body crackles with nervous energy. _"Yeah, something…something happened."_

"Please tell me," Kurt says. His legs feel weak with fear, and everything around him begins to fade out until everything is centered on the phone in his hand and Sam's voice hundreds of miles away.

_"There was a shooting."_

Kurt sucks in a breath. "At McKinley?"

_"Yeah. No one…was killed."_

Kurt is about to breathe out a sigh of relief when his brain catches up to Sam's words, that hesitance still present, still heavy. He'd said no one was killed. That means that people would be hurt—that means that people close to Kurt have been hurt. There's no other reason for Sam to be calling.

"Sam, who was hurt?" Kurt asks, pleads. He's aware of his voice going up, aware of the way he has to shakily press a hand to the coolness of the wall behind him. His phone is hot, too hot, in his hand, and the sound of people walking by him is too loud.

Sam says nothing for a minute that stretches on too long. Kurt can hear his breathing; hear his inhales as he must open his mouth to speak before closing it again. When he finally speaks, it's almost a plea. _"You need to get down here."_

"What?" Kurt blinks. "I still have three weeks of classes left, and I'm in the middle of one of them now. I can't just leave New York—"

_"It was Blaine."_

Kurt's stomach drops painfully fast. His heart thuds hard against his ribcage, like it's trying to escape. The wall feels like it had moved a couple of inches back, and Kurt is vaguely aware that he's swaying. He imagines Blaine, bleeding and injured. He imagines Blaine, so scared and probably trying to act like he knows what he's doing even when he doesn't. "Blaine was…was shot?"

_"No."_

"Then what—?"

_"…He was…he was r—raped. By the shooter."_

Kurt slides down the wall, his phone falling away from his ear but still held loosely in his hand. His ears ring; people walking by look at him curiously, and he thinks that one of them says something, but all Kurt can hear is Sam's tinny voice, over and over.

_He was raped._

_"We couldn't do anything,"_ Sam's saying, voice tight and thick with tears. _"The guy had his gun to Blaine's head and he threatened to kill him."_

_Blaine. Beautiful, strong, selfless Blaine._

_"We couldn't fucking_ do anything _."_ Sam's voice rises in anger, in hysteria. _"And Blaine just…he just fucking_ took it. _For us. I saw his eyes. He knew what was going to happen, and even before he was threatened he still didn't try to get away or turn on the guy."_

Kurt's world spins dangerously, the floor unstable like he's in an earthquake. His eyes sting, face hot, and it's like an out-of-body experience when he realizes that he's crying, breaths almost inaudibly hitching. He thinks of the last time he and Blaine had talked on the phone (three nights ago) and how Blaine had laughed (beautiful and sweet and just enough to remind Kurt how painfully in love he still is) at something Kurt had said about NYADA. He thinks about the little heart Blaine had left in the final message he'd sent Kurt last night, and how Kurt had sent one back. He thinks about how things have finally been looking up, how he'd been looking forward to the summer to hopefully bring them back together, and how now, in an instant, everything is shattered and littered around Kurt in broken, glimmering pieces.

"Is he going to be okay," Kurt finally whispers. It's not a question, because Kurt doesn't want it to be a question. Kurt doesn't want any of this to be unsure.

_"I…don't know. He's in the hospital and I think that his parents are there now, but…Kurt, god, I just_ don't know. _The guy was…was brutal."_

Kurt squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head. He doesn't know how anyone could do this, how anyone could single out someone like Blaine, so sweet and innocent, and do this.

(Kurt remembers the first time he and Blaine had had sex, how eager but nervous Blaine was, how scared he was. He'll always remember that evening, the way Blaine had been gasping under him, how somehow they'd found a perfect rhythm halfway through and their bodies had worked together as one, undulating and rocking. He remembers how happy he'd been to have been the first person to feel Blaine in this way.)

(He doesn't think of Eli.)

"I need to get home," Kurt says. He tries to stand up and his legs wobble; he grabs onto the wall for support. "I need to see him. I need to see him right now."

_I need to know you're okay, Blaine._

Another student asks if he's all right, and all Kurt does is shake his head and wave them off.

_"I don't know if they'll let you into the room yet—"_

"I don't care!" Kurt clenches his fist, clenches his teeth. He takes a deep breath and wipes away the tear that begins to slide down his face. "I can't—I won't let him go through this alone."

There's a pause, and then Sam says, heavy and world-worn, _"Just…hurry up, man. And let me know when you get to Ohio."_

Kurt turns around and walks away from his classroom.

\----

Stella Anderson had thought that she'd seen the last of her son being in the hospital. Seeing him go through the trauma after the dance at his old school, then the eye incident last January, had taken its toll on her, and she dislikes how familiar she is now with hospital policy and rules. Everything is almost second-nature for her.

She hates it.

Sitting in the uncomfortable chair beside Blaine's bed, she strokes over the back of his hand and remembers the call, remembers the echoing crash of her mug on the hardwood floor of the kitchen. She tries not to remember the way Blaine had looked at her, hollow-eyed and eerily blank, when she'd gotten to the hospital, the way he'd whispered _"Mommy"_ like it was the only thing keeping him together. She tries not to remember how a male nurse had accidentally touched Blaine when he wasn't expecting it and how he'd screamed and screamed, begging and pleading for some man—that man—to _stop, please, not anymore, please,_ until he'd been sedated.

"Oh, Blaine," she whispers. "Why you?"

She smoothes a hand down Blaine's side over his uniform. The nurses had told her that they'd been unable to run any tests or take any samples before she'd gotten there and had stressed that Blaine undergo a forensic examination when he woke up. They have tests planned for HIV and STIs, as well as a SAFE kit ready.

Stella closes her eyes and tries to remember that morning, how she'd tried to get Blaine to sit down for breakfast but how he'd declined, saying that he'd needed to get to school early to work on something for glee. He'd been on his phone, then, texting someone and smiling whenever they'd send a reply back. She had wondered if it had been Kurt—Blaine was always so much happier when it was Kurt.

She'd let him go without breakfast, and now she wonders what would have happened if she hadn't. She knows, obviously, that she couldn't have forced Blaine to stay home from school, especially so close to the end of the year, but what if she had made a day of it? William may not have been home but she was. Maybe they could have spent the day shopping or gone to the zoo. She hasn't taken Blaine to the zoo since the summer before he'd started high school.

She continues to stroke over Blaine's hand and feels her heart clench. She struggles to take in a sufficient breath. Blaine's eyes are closed, and he's breathing evenly; he looks so peaceful, but Stella knows that it's only temporary. When Blaine wakes up she's going to see that haunted, hollowed look in his eyes that scares her more than anything. Blaine has never looked like that, not even after the dance.

She doesn't know what to do. She's completely clueless, and that might just be the most difficult part. There's nothing to prepare you for _that_ call. There's nothing to prepare you for when you hear that your eighteen-year-old son had been raped in front of his friends. She wonders, absently, how they're doing. Then she realizes, selfishly, that she doesn't care. Not right now, not when her son is hurting.

She thinks back to one night when Blaine was a boy and she had cut herself pretty badly with a pair of gardening shears. She'd been careful to cover the floor and not show how hurt she really was. Blaine was such a sensitive boy; she didn't want to upset him. But he'd found her when she was cleaning her hand at the sink, water swirling pink-red down the drain, and had reached up to set a box full of band-aids on the kitchen counter.

"You always give me band-aids when I'm hurting," he'd said. "I don't want you to hurt anymore, Momma."

Blaine's always been eager to help anyone out; it's one of the reasons Stella's so proud to have him as her son. But now, in this bed when Blaine's hurting more than he ever has, Stella has no idea what to do. No band-aid is going to fix this. She isn't even sure how Blaine is going to recover mentally from this.

She presses a hand to her mouth, squeezes her eyes shut and lets out a hitched sob.

Blaine makes a noise in his sleep, shifting restlessly as his eyes dart behind his closed lids. Stella lets out a shaky breath, breathes deep and keeps her thumb moving gently over Blaine's hand. She whispers, just as much to him as to herself, "You're okay, baby. You're gonna be okay. Mommy's here, sweetie. You're safe now. You're safe."

Blaine still keeps moving, whimpering, and finally his eyes flutter open. The laxness sleep had given his body is instantly gone as he slowly becomes more aware. There's a furrow between his brows, and he looks at Stella with a horrible cloud of confusion for a few moments too long.

She sucks in a breath, holds it, and only lets it out when Blaine says, shakily, "Mommy?"

"I'm here." She nods, tentatively lifts her hand up and reaches it out. When Blaine doesn't flinch she strokes over his cheek and feels the fine tremor of his body. "Hey, baby."

Blaine shifts on the bed and lets out a groan, his eyes squeezing shut and his mouth twisting in a frown. He tries to curl in further on himself and gasps in pain. Stella reaches out, wants to touch him but isn't sure if she should. They'd told her that he'd react better to her touch, but what if he doesn't? What if he freaks out again and this time it's all her fault?

Blaine whimpers. "It hurts."

"I know, sweetie, I know. But the doctors will make it better, okay? They'll get you fixed up."

He shakes his head, pulls away when Stella tries to touch him again. "I'm not going to get better."

Her eyebrows crinkle together. "Sweetie, what—?"

Blaine's next words are tiny, hushed and ominous and _awful_ , and at first Stella can barely understand them. "I deserved it."

When she does it's like every nerve ending in her body has suddenly flash-frozen. She's shaking her head before she realizes it and tries to say as comforting as she can, "No, Blaine, it's okay—"

"No it's not!" Blaine shouts. His eyes are red-rimmed, full of tears, and he starts crying again as he tugs at the hem of his Cheerios shirt like he wants it off. "He singled me out because of this stupid uniform. He didn't choose Kitty, or Brittany. He chose _me_ and I…I _liked it._ " Blaine's voice rises again and it takes everything in Stella not to try to touch his arm to calm him down. Tears slip down his cheeks, one after the other, and his eyes have gone distant. "It h-hurt so _bad_ and I didn't want it and I was so hum—humiliated but he still…he still made me—I still—"

He doesn't finish, but he doesn't need to.

"That doesn't mean anything," she finally says, struggling to keep her voice level and neutrally comforting. She just wants to see the warm light back in his eyes. "Okay? It's not your fault. None of this is. You can't help how your body—how your body reacts. That doesn't mean that you liked it. Baby, you _will_ get better."

Blaine shakes his head vehemently, but before he can answer a nurse walks in with a clipboard in her hands. She looks between the two of them for a moment before she says, "Blaine, if you're up and ready we have a few tests waiting for you." She looks at Stella. "If you wouldn't mind waiting outside, please, Mrs. Anderson."

Stella bites her lip and nods, slowly. She squeezes Blaine's hand, presses a kiss to his forehead. "You're still my brave little boy, Blaine."

She doesn't cry until she reaches the bathroom, and only then does she dial her husband.


	4. This Is The Road To Ruin

Blaine stares at the sterile, white-tiled floor of the examining room. The nurse busies herself shuffling papers and grabbing a pen from her mint-green smock pocket. It still hurts too much to sit like this, but Blaine doesn't want to say anything. He doesn't even want to be here right now. He rubs his palms over the bright red polyester of his pants instead, to distract himself from the intermittent stabs of pain, the harsh echo of his own breaths.

He's facing the door; that's a good thing. His mind is still foggy from the sedative, but cognizant enough for him to know that there is danger lurking in every corner, that what seems safe now could cease to be so in the span of only a few minutes.

He wants his mom here, and he doesn't at the same time. He doesn't want her to know more than she needs to. He doesn't want to worry her. Who he really wants, he doesn't deserve.

"Okay, so I know this is going to be difficult for you, Blaine, but I'm going to have to ask you some questions. They're standard questions, ones that are asked during every exam," the nurse says, smiling sympathetically. It breaks him out of his thoughts and he looks up, sees her smile. To Blaine it's a mocking smile, a crude smile, and he feels red-hot rage bubble up. He wants to smack it off her face, but he knows that he can't do that. He knows it'd be acting irrationally, and that's not him. That's not Blaine Anderson.

(But who is Blaine Anderson anymore, anyway?)

His hand trembles as he goes to push back some of the hair that's fallen loose from his gel and he finds that his forehead is damp with perspiration. He shrugs, sets and relaxes his jaw a few times in succession. "Whatever."

The nurse purses her lips, poises her pen above the paper. She smiles once more at Blaine before saying, "We don't want to talk to anyone else who was in the room until we talk to you, so do you think you could remember about what time the assault took place?"

Deep breaths. Blaine breathes and closes his eyes. He can still hear the ticking of the metronome syncing up with the ticking of his watch. He can still see the little hands move along the plain black face, can still remember wondering when it was all going to be over. The linoleum is cold under his palms, and the air around him is thick and silent. "Um…a little after three. Three-twenty, maybe, three-thirty."

The nurse nods, scribbles it down. "And your medical history? Just to give us a background on your health."

"I was in the hospital for four months my freshman year of high school because of some injuries, and I was in it again last January for a few weeks because of an eye injury."

"Any recent consensual sexual activity?"

Blaine sucks in a breath, hunches over slightly and balls his hands into fists. He gets flashes of Kurt, of Eli, and _this is why it happened, he chose you because he knew you were a slut. He chose you because you went and let another guy fuck you when you were still with Kurt just because he said you were pretty. You don't deserve Kurt. You don't deserve anyone. You just deserve to get used like the whore you are._

"Blaine?"

Blaine shakes his head, presses his palms hard to his eyes. The voices remain, stubborn and mocking, no matter how hard Blaine tries to chase them away. "I'm—" he starts, then takes another deep breath to calm himself down. He keeps his eyes closed, imagines Kurt's clear blue eyes and easy laugh. "I haven't…been with anyone since my ex-boyfriend on Valentine's Day."

She nods, writes that down. "That was a long time ago, so we won't have to worry about that." She smiles but Blaine doesn't smile back. "We just need to know in case multiple samples are found when we take a DNA analysis. And you didn't move after the assault, did you?"

Blaine shakes his head. "N-no. I was…in shock. My friend s-stayed with me until the police arrived, and then they helped me onto the stretcher."

She smiles over the clipboard. Blaine tries to focus on how nice her eyes are, like his mom's. "You've got a very good friend, then."

Blaine tries to match her smile this time but it flounders, so instead he half-shrugs and blinks back tears as he says, remembering Sam's unfailingly calm gaze locked onto Blaine's the entire time, "The best."

"And the paramedics said that you were bleeding, right? No memory loss or vomiting?"

Blaine's body still aches, and he shifts uncomfortably. "Just the bleeding."

"We'll get that checked out as soon as we're done," the nurse promises. She checks off another little box, writes something down, and Blaine concentrates on the scratch of her pen, the muted bustle of the hospital outside the closed doors. Everything is so normal for them, and Blaine envies that. "Can you give us any information on the suspect? Height, estimated age, hair color, eye color?"

A chilled tremor runs down Blaine's spine, and he feels his lips part as he looks up at her in horror. "Y-you didn't catch him?" _He's still out there. He's going to come looking for me, he's going to find me and hurt me again, no, please, no, not anymore, please—_

"From what I've heard he managed to flee before police arrived. But if you and everyone else in the room with you can help I don't think it'd be hard to find him."

Blaine swallows hard. Just knowing that the man is out there, somewhere, makes his stomach roll unpleasantly. He tastes bile on his tongue as he swallows. "He, um, was tall. And had dark hair and a really high-pitched voice. He didn't look to be older than his thirties. But that's all…all I can think o-of."

The nurse smiles again. She looks pretty when she does that. "Very good, Blaine, thank you. Now, these last two questions won't be easy for you, but I'm going to need you to answer them as thoroughly as possible, okay? Take your time with them, don't rush. If you need a moment let me know."

Blaine nods, and she continues.

"I need to know the nature of the assault. We already know that it was indoors, but did he threaten you with a weapon, or grab you or injure you in some other way?"

_Hands, big and broad, on his hips. The feeling of helplessness with the cold barrel of a gun pressed to his temple, the way he'd looked out and had seen everyone looking away. The knowledge that he had to do this to keep everyone safe, not knowing if he'd even be safe in the end._

He feels a tear slip down his cheek, followed by another, and in any other situation he'd be embarrassed at how childlike his voice sounds when he answers. "He put a—a gun to my head and he threatened to—to kill me if no one w-watched. And he held onto my hips pretty hard, but other than…than that, he didn't do anything."

Blaine twists his shirt in his hands, looks down at his feet swinging above the floor. He feels his body shake with suppressed sobs, but he presses his lips tightly together. He just has one more question; he can do this.

"You're doing great, Blaine," the nurse assures. "This one is going to be the hardest, but the responses only have to be brief, okay?" She waits for Blaine to nod. "I need a description of the sexual assaults to help us collect and examine any evidence."

Blaine's whole body stiffens, and he doesn't answer right away—unsure if he doesn't want to, or if he just can't. It's all still too fresh, too real. He still feels those hands, that pressure, that helplessness. Answering these questions makes it real, and Blaine doesn't want it to be real. He wants this all to be a horribly vivid dream.

"Um." It's timid, and his voice is still cracking and unsure. He feels the hot flush of embarrassment travel up his neck. "He forced me to s-suck him off." He can still taste bitter, unfamiliar flesh, can still feel the heavy fullness of it against his tongue. It segues into unimaginable pain, burning hot and radiating along his spine, throughout his entire body. He succumbs to a sob. "And he—he didn't use lube or a—a condom when he…" He trails off, words melting into another harsh sob. His arms wrap around his torso and his head bows down. His hitching breaths echo in the room for too many moments, and he whispers, "It still hurts so badly."

"That's all we need to know, Blaine," the nurse says softly. She scratches her words down, slowly this time. "Thank you. We have some STI and HIV tests planned, and those won't take long at all, I promise. Then we'll examine you, fix you up so you stop hurting, and let you meet back up with your mother. Does that sound good?"

Blaine whimpers, squeezing his eyes shut. Her words fuzz and fade into a throbbing, unintelligible beat. He hears only that chillingly cold voice, _"Go on, slut; fuck yourself on my cock for me. Let everyone watching see that that's all you're good for," _then hears an unfamiliar chorus of assent, nasty-voiced and mocking, rise up in the back of his mind.__

___That's all you'll ever be good for._ _ _

___Only sluts get pleasure when they're raped._ _ _

___Kurt's never going to want you now._ _ _

__"Blaine?" the nurse asks again, concerned. "What's wrong?"_ _

__"He came," Blaine gasps, a gulp like he's coming back up for air. "He came inside me, and I came, too. He made me come and I—I liked it."_ _

___Of course you liked it. This is all your fault. You don't even deserve to press charges against the guy—he was doing you a favor._ _ _

__"Blaine, sweetheart, you can't control how your body reacts," the nurse tries. She sets down her clipboard and pen, takes a few steps closer but doesn't try to touch him. She's using the voice one would adopt for a frightened animal. "I've seen so many people in your shoes, and I've heard the same thing from almost every single one of them. It is not your fault. None of this is."_ _

__Blaine just shakes his head, wraps his arms tighter around his torso and looks blankly at the wall. His mind is swimming with questions, with flashes of memory and phantom stabs of pain. His fingers twitch, and he gets the sudden urge to claw his skin off where he can still feel the impressions of palms and fingers. He doesn't have to lift up his shirt to know that there are bruises. He hears the metronome like it's right beside him. He hears the man's grunts, his own moans as pleasure had welled up in a traitorous tide inside him._ _

__He is broken, so, so broken and tainted._ _

__"Kurt's never going to want me now," he whispers._ _


	5. Remember Me As I Was Not As I Am

By five, Burt Hummel usually likes to be home. It gives him some time before Carole gets off work (if she's not working nights) to unwind with a cold beer. He'd tried cooking for her a few times, back when they'd first gotten married, but it had all been just as disastrous as it had been right after Elizabeth died. Unless it's grilling season, without Kurt here to boss him around Burt is helpless.

Today, though, he's running late. The paperwork has been piling up, and he's been trying to diminish to all day to no avail. At quarter after, he rubs his eyes, sighs, and calls it a day, shutting off the light to his office and stepping out into the main garage to let the rest of the guys working to know that he's going home.

When he gets there, he sees two unattended cars, one of which is due promptly when they open tomorrow morning. Looking around, he finally sees Jimmy, Manny, and Jack crowded in the corner around the TV. Burt narrows his eyes.

"I'm all for takin' a breather and everything," he says loudly as he approaches, "but I'm runnin' a business here, fellas."

The guys jump, and Manny turns around. His eyes are wide, horrified, and immediately Burt's stomach flips. Something has to have happened in New York. Something always happens in New York.

"Sorry, boss," Manny says, "but there's been a shooting. Can you believe it? Here, in Lima."

Relief begins to flood warm and relaxing over Burt, but it isn't complete. He's almost afraid to ask where, but he doesn't have to as the newscaster's voice interrupts the tense silence and all Burt can make out is "McKinley High School."

The warmth of relief is gone as his blood runs ice cold. Kurt may be safe, but his friends still go there.

"Shit," he swears uncharacteristically.

He makes it to his car before his phone rings, and he doesn't check the caller ID before answering.

_"Dad."_ It's Kurt's voice, and Burt doesn't think he's even been gladder to hear it in his life. _"Please don't get mad at me, but I really need you to come pick me up from the airport right now."_

Burt starts his car without a second thought. "You heard about the shooting, huh?" He can't be mad at Kurt for caring, he just can't. Elizabeth would have done exactly the same thing.

A long pause, tense and thick, and Burt makes it out of the parking lot before Kurt speaks again. This time it's quieter, more scared and defeated. _"You haven't heard about Blaine."_

Not a question, just a statement. Burt's stomach feels like it drops off a skyscraper and he white-knuckles the steering wheel as he makes a turn. Blaine may have hurt his son, but he's still family, and Burt still cares about him. He's just a kid, and kids make mistakes. He still cares about Kurt, is willing to try and fix his mistakes, and to Burt that's what matters.

"No," he says, cautiously. "Kurt, what happened? Did he get shot?"

Silence again, only this time it's broken by Kurt's sob, loud and harsh. Kurt begins crying, and Burt doesn't stop him, _can't_ stop him. He doesn't know what to do, what to say, because he doesn't _know_.

_"H-he—he—"_ Kurt begins, sucking in deep breaths to calm himself. His voice crackles over the phone. _"He was…raped."_

Burt's blood runs cold as Kurt begins to sob again. Who would—no, who _could_ —do this to someone? A _kid_? Blaine is just a kid, and now everything has been stolen from him. He's never going to be the same person ever again, that much Burt knows. Nothing is ever going to be the same again for anyone.

Slowly the chill in his veins heats until it's bubbling, scalding, until it's rage, white-hot and burning.

_"I need to see him, Dad, I have to,"_ Kurt says, desperate and pleading and terrified.

Burt nods, setting his jaw until it aches. "You will, Kurt. Don't worry."

Another thought passes through his mind, brief and gone in a flash, but in that tiny little space of a few seconds it leaves Burt sick. Because no matter how much he cares about Blaine, about those kids, Burt's just glad that Kurt wasn't there.

\----

Blaine stays close to his mother's side when they enter their house. It still hurts to walk, but with the medication it's manageable, and Blaine's inside as fast as possible, hugging his arms to his chest and looking only at the floor.

Stella follows him, but she says nothing as she locks the door. The loud, metallic _click_ seems to echo in the empty room, in Blaine's mind where he can still hear the jiggling of door handles, can still feel a cold gun's cruel press.

He squeezes his eyes shut, drawing himself into his own world. Stella's voice snaps him out of it, and he jumps, heart pounding. He turns, looks at her. His brows are furrowed, mouth set in a fine line. She looks unsure. "Do you…need anything, sweetie?"

Blaine shakes his head. "I just want to take a shower."

Stella nods, and Blaine walks cautiously up the stairs, listening to the creak of each step until he reaches the landing. It's quiet up here, and the hallway seems to stretch on forever. He avoids looking into shadows as he darts into the bathroom and locks the door, pressing his back against it as he tries to will his heart to stop beating so fast.

He's at home. He's safe. He knows, rationally, that there's no one here to hurt him. He also knows, irrationally, that he'd thought that only hours before. What he'd thought before is all a lie.

He's so exhausted. His head pounds and his body aches. He's still wearing his uniform, and as he looks down at himself, sees the WMHS logo, the red-and-white that reminds him too much of the floor back in the choir room after everything had happened, he feels panic begin to swell like a balloon. Behind it is anger.

He lets out a choked, primitive sound and wrestles the shirt off, throwing it across the bathroom where it hits the opposite wall with a muted thump; tears fuzz his vision as he tugs off his shoes, and his pants follow his shirt, hitting the wall and falling to a crumpled red heap. Blaine nearly falls, only manages to steady himself with a hand on the sink, and he starts crying again as he slides to the floor where he curls in on himself.

_Why did I have to be wearing that uniform? He wouldn't have chosen me if I hadn't been wearing that stupid fucking uniform_.

From there on there are endless _why_ s, questions of _had I done this_ and _had I reacted differently_. Blaine doesn't know what to think anymore, what to feel. It's all a jumbled, fuzzy mess, and he thinks he might be suffocating. Taking a breath is hard, letting it out is harder. It's like his body doesn't want him to live anymore.

He closes his eyes; he sees the man, the faces of his friends, people he doesn't know how he'll ever face again knowing what they've seen. He opens his eyes; he sees the mess of his life, his uniform thrown across the room, the trembling of his hands and legs.

How long he's down there, he isn't sure. When he stands up his legs tremble. He steadfastly avoids his reflection in the mirror again when he pulls back the shower curtain, the rings squeaking on the pole. The water gradually warms up, hot clouds of steam floating down like a blanket, covering his reflection so he doesn't have to. Only then does he take off his underwear and step in. He makes the mistake of looking down when he steps into the tub.

On his hips he can see bruises, large and purpling. They're in the shape of hands.

\----

When Burt's truck pulls up into the driveway of the Andersons' house, Kurt's stomach begins to flip, and he feels sick. He presses a hand to his stomach, thins his lips, and sees his father looking over across the console with concern.

"You all right?" he asks.

Kurt doesn't say anything. Ever since he'd gotten off the plane at the airport he's been terrified. Burt had cried when he'd hugged Kurt, and it had only taken seconds for Kurt, clutching at his father's back, to begin crying as well. It had been out of relief, Kurt knows, relief that he hadn't been there, that he'd been safe; he knows, also that it had been partly because of Blaine. Kurt isn't blind to the relationship, how, even if Kurt dates other guys, Blaine will always be welcomed like a son.

Back in the car, with the engine running, Kurt lets out a sigh, then shakes his head. "No. Not really."

Burt laughs, though it's hollow. He cuts the engine, and then they're sitting in silence. The façade that had always been so comforting to Kurt, that used to dredge up fond memories of their early relationship, is suddenly foreboding, a giant, empty castle with overgrown gardens and bleak windows.

Kurt's scared to know what he's going to find there. He closes his eyes, tries to remember Blaine smiling, laughing, so unfailingly optimistic despite everything that had gone wrong with his life. He tries to remember the boy that had taken his hand when no one else would, the boy that he'd fallen in love with. Blaine is still in there, physically the same. But Kurt's not stupid.

Stella answers the door when they knock. Her eyes are red, red-rimmed, and her smile is weary and not really there. She steps aside, says, "I'm so glad you called, Kurt."

Kurt tries to smile but is sure his is just as wispy.

Stella nods at Burt when he steps in behind Kurt. The door shuts and Kurt's heart begins racing again as he automatically seeks out the staircase. He just wants to know. He needs to see.

"Blaine should be in his room," Stella's saying. She discreetly wipes at her eyes. "I'll come upstairs with you just in case."

Kurt is acutely aware of his father behind him as they climb the staircase, and again as Stella knocks, says, quietly, "Blaine, honey?"

There's a muffled reply that must be in the affirmative, and Kurt is sure to remain out of sight as Stella steps in and says, "You have some visitors."

Blaine makes a pained sound, and Kurt's heart clenches painfully in his chest. But he must have said okay, for Stella reappears and steps aside, nodding for them to come in.

Kurt is first, and he's shocked at how…normal everything feels. Blaine's room is the same as it had been the last time he'd been in here before he'd left for New York. There's a photo set facedown on the nightstand, and with a sharp, painful jolt Kurt realizes that it's his. And if it's not put away it means that Blaine had done it recently.

Even Blaine looks the same. He's sitting at the head of his bed, legs crossed. He's wearing sweats, the baggy, shapeless ones he'd told Kurt were strictly for cold winter nights, and a loose shirt that gaps at the neck. He's looking down, tugging at his comforter, and his shoulders are hunched.

Stella leaves. Kurt has to swallow several times before he can open his mouth and say, "Blaine?"

Hesitant, it's a few seconds before Blaine looks up, and Kurt nearly takes a step back in shock at the dead, lifeless look in Blaine's eyes. There is no emotion on his face as he looks at Kurt.

It lasts only seconds, then Blaine's eyes flit over Kurt's shoulder where Burt is standing, and that hollow stare is replaced with panic; then Blaine is scooting back, drawing his knees up to his chest and shaking his head, saying, over and over, "No, please, Mr. Hummel, don't hurt me, please, _please_."

This time Kurt does take a step back, and when he looks he sees that his father's eyes are wide, terrified, hurt.

"Blaine, you know I would never hurt you," Burt tries, but Blaine shakes his head, curls in tighter. His words are muffled, bordering on hysterical, and all Kurt can make out is "don't hurt me" and "please get out of here."

"Dad," Kurt says, softly, "maybe you should go."

Burt sets his jaw, stands his ground for a few seconds longer, but he leaves when Blaine lets out a horrible, terrified whimper. He leaves the door open and disappears down the hall, his footsteps echoing on the stairs until they fade out.

"Blaine," Kurt whispers. He suddenly feels drained, like he's just run a mile. He doesn't move, too afraid to, and waits until Blaine looks up.

Blaine sucks in a deep breath, wipes at his eyes and shakes his head. "Go away, Kurt. Please. Just leave me alone."

"I just flew all the way from New York," Kurt says. "There's no way I'm leaving you now."

Blaine laughs hollowly. "You shouldn't have. I don't deserve to see someone like you."

"What are you talking about?" Kurt asks. He takes a step forward, and when Blaine doesn't say anything he takes another, then another, until he's standing at the foot of Blaine's bed. "Of course you do."

Blaine avoids the question. "Who told you?" he asks as he wraps his arms around his legs.

"Sam."

"I should have figured," Blaine says, and Kurt's surprised to detect bitterness.

"It's not like that," Kurt tries, taking another step. "He knew you needed someone."

"So he calls my ex-boyfriend who lives in New York and who's seeing another guy?" Blaine scoffs. "Yeah, he chose someone great."

Kurt clenches his fist at the surge of anger. He knows why Blaine is doing this. He understands (at least partly). Blaine is lashing out before he needs to, because it's building up and building up.

"I'm not seeing anyone," Kurt says, "and you know I care about you, Blaine. Despite everything that's happened I don't want to ever see you get hurt."

Blaine turns away, resting his chin on his shoulder. It's a long moment before he speaks again, and this time it is bereft of the anger, of the bitterness and hostility and fear. It's worn-out, defeated. "Yeah, well, it's too late for that, huh?"

"Blaine, listen to me," Kurt says, stepping closer, and when Blaine looks up his eyes widen in surprise to see Kurt standing just shy of the edge of his bed. "You are important to me. You always will be, and nothing is going to change that. Not what happened before, and not what—what happened today. You're Blaine Anderson, one of the most talented, amazing, astounding boys I've ever met. If anyone can get through this you can."

Blaine's eyes flash dangerously, and his voice is low when he says, "You think it's that easy? You think after a few weeks, maybe some therapy, I can get over this?"

Kurt's jaw drops, eyes widening in surprise. "No, god, no, Blaine, that's not what I meant—"

"It's not that easy!" Blaine's voice rises sharply. He blinks rapidly, tears streaking down his chest. "I had to take an HIV test and now I have to wait for the results. I jump if someone moves too fast. I can't look at myself in the mirror. I can't look at _you_ because I know that I've let you of all people down so many times that I can hardly stand myself."

Kurt is crying before he realizes it, one tear, then anther, slipping down his cheek. Blaine's chest heaves, and slowly his eyes narrow, soften, before turning distant again. He rests his forehead on his arm, and his voice is muffled when he says, "Please leave me alone, Kurt. I don't deserve to see you."

Kurt hesitates, wants to reach out. His body trembles, and his own breaths are short and hiccupping as he struggles through them. He isn't sure he's ever hurt so much in his life, isn't sure if he's ever felt so _powerless_. He doesn't want to leave. He can't leave.

But he does.

When he reaches the door be turns around, watches Blaine's back shake, hears hitching cries. Blaine looks so small huddled up in his big bed, and Kurt wonders what will ever make this right.

"I'm staying here for the rest of the week," he says softly, hand on the door. He isn't even sure if Blaine can hear him. "Call me if you need anything."

Blaine doesn't say anything, like Kurt expected, and it's only once he's shut the door that he claps a hand over his mouth, squeezes his eyes shut, slides to the floor, and allows himself to cry.


	6. I Need More Dreams And Less Life

Blaine isn't going to call him. Kurt isn't stupid, isn't blind: he's seen Blaine, has heard the monotone resignation in his voice. But he'd wanted to give Blaine the option to be in control of something, even if it's just a simple phone call, because he knows that it's what Blaine needs right now.

Kurt cries at Blaine's house, but it isn't until he and his dad get home and he goes to his room, locking the door behind him, that he finally crumples, falling to the floor with his fingers raked through his hair and his forehead resting on his knees. His body heaves, shudders, and the tears are an endless, ceaseless tide as they slide down his cheeks, down his lips.

He's still haunted by the look on Blaine's face, the terror that had been there when he'd seen Burt and the lack of _anything_ that had been there when it had just been them at last. Kurt doesn't remember what he'd been expecting to see, but it hadn't been that and it had thrown him for a loop. He'd thought that maybe he could handle this, that he could try to make things okay, but he'd been so wrong. And that might be what bothers him the most: not the unnecessary anger, or the terrifying reaction to his dad, but the sudden, rug-pulled-from-under-his-feet feeling that Kurt has _no idea what he's doing_.

He doesn't know how to deal with victims like Blaine. He hadn't even researched anything. He'd had this stupid, white-knight vision from the moment he'd decided to come back to Lima. He'd planned to swoop in and cradle Blaine, make all of his hurt and his pain go away, because he'd thought that it might be that easy. They're best friends, after all, and Kurt still loves Blaine with all of his heart, so shouldn't that work?

But it doesn't, and now Kurt feels like he's being ripped slowly in two, can feel each and every tiny fissure in his heart as it cracks, splinters, shatters everything he's built up. He can't help Blaine.

Kurt cries until his head throbs and breathing through his nose is difficult and almost painful. He stands up on shaky legs, wobbling towards the nightstand to grab the box of tissues, and takes a step back in surprise when he sees that it's nearly ten-thirty at night. He hasn't paid attention once to time since he'd gotten home, and now that he thinks about it the sky had been growing dark on the drive to Blaine's.

He throws the tissues in the trashcan and sits heavily on his bed, running his hand absently over the comforter. He thinks that his bag might be downstairs with his dad and realizes that he isn't even sure what he's packed, if it's useful, practical clothing or stuff Kurt would never normally let see the light of day.

(He's trying not to think of all the times Blaine's bed on this bed, of all the times _they've_ been on this bed.)

There's a knock at the door seconds after a fresh wave of tears begins to prickle and sting behind Kurt's eyes, and Kurt quickly runs the feel of his palm over them, though he knows he must already look awful from his first bout of crying, and says, hoarse, "Come in."

The door creaks open and Burt steps in, a cautious look on his face as he holds out Kurt's duffel bag. "You left this downstairs, kid."

Kurt nods, ducking his head to avoid his father's eyes. "Just, um, put it here." He pats the bed to show him where.

Burt sets the bag down, but he doesn't leave. He stands, hovering, for a few more seconds before he pushes the bag out of the way and sits down. The bed dips under his weight, and the warmth of his strong, solid body next to Kurt's brings back memories of the desolate, painful months after his mom's death, when neither of them could cope very well. It's enough to bring back the tears alone, and before Kurt knows it he's wrapping his arms around Burt's neck and crying into his shoulder, inhaling between shuddering sobs the smell of cologne and motor oil.

Kurt can't stop crying. It's all of his frustration, all of his anger, all of his sadness and loneliness and hatred for the man that's done this, that has broken Blaine so horribly. He hiccups when the tears finally slow, but he doesn't move, too reluctant to leave the warm, comforting embrace of his father's arms. It's safe here, like it's always been.

"I'm going to stay until next weekend," Kurt says after a minute, his voice thick. He finally pulls back, then, wipes his eyes and looks up to see his father's reaction. "I'll call the dean tomorrow and say that I've had a family emergency."

Burt nods. "I can't say that I like you jeopardizing your education, but I'm…real glad you're sticking around. I know yesterday didn't go over so well, but there's still hope, right?"

Kurt's sure that hope is a four-letter lie, but he nods anyway, just to appease his dad. He smiles, too, but it's forced, painful, and his lips don't seem to want to cooperate just right. But Burt takes it anyway, giving Kurt a smile of his own and a reassuring squeeze on his shoulder. It's his silent way of saying _things will work out_ , but Kurt finds it hard to believe him.

\----

Sam falls asleep for exactly one hour that night before he wakes, screaming. Or—he thinks he does, but no one rushes into his room, no lights turn on. Nothing stirs at all in his house, and there is no noise except the harsh pounding of his heart and his deep, gasping breaths.

As he stares into the inky blackness, his mind pieces together the sharp bits of dream that remain, and as much as Sam tries not to remember it he does, can see flashes of Blaine's terrified face, can hear his screams, his pleas. It had been the scene in the choir room that afternoon, but this time the gunman hadn't pushed his gun out of the way, had kept it to Blaine's head, and when he was done he had looked out at them all and laughed and pulled the trigger and—

Sam presses his palms to his eyes, shaking his head. Nausea swirls hot and sour in his stomach, and it's an effort to successfully swallow it down. He never wants to set foot in the choir room ever again, but school will resume on Monday and glee club has nowhere else to practice but there.

He hasn't heard from Blaine all night, and he hadn't heard from Kurt since he'd called him. The temptation to pick up his phone is nearly overwhelming, but whenever he tries to make himself do it, he can't. He's scared, though he doesn't necessarily understand why. Maybe with Kurt here Blaine will heal faster, but even Sam is aware that that's a long shot, and, knowing Blaine, probably won't work.

But Blaine is alive, and that's all that matters. Sam collapses back onto his pillows, his sheets slumped to his waist. He doesn't pull them back up, and he doesn't fall back asleep.

\----

_"McKinley became the site of unexpected tragedy on Wednesday when an unidentified man broke into the school and brandished a gun. Thankfully no one was killed, though injuries were reported. None of these injuries were as serious, however, as Blaine Anderson's (senior). Sources tell me that the gunman (who is now in custody) spent most of his time in the choir room where the resident glee club practices, and that—brace yourselves, faint of heart—Blaine was his unfortunate victim. And no, it did not involve a weapon of any kind. No word on his condition, but it is said that, after being taken to Lima Memorial, he is currently recovering at home."_

It's there.

It's there, and everyone can see it.

Everyone _has_ seen it.

Blaine thinks he might throw up as he stares in horror at the page in the paper until the tiny black words blur. The floor sways under his feet, like it's caught in an earthquake, and suddenly everything seems surreal, not quite tangible and there. Jacob had made the article discreet in its bluntness, but there is no mistaking its true identity and purpose: to tell the whole school that Blaine couldn't even defend himself. That he's weak, a target, a failure.

It's Monday, and school is back in session. His mom had offered the night before to let him stay home, that he could rest, recover, recoup before going back, but Blaine knows that all of the rest and recovery in the world wouldn't help him. Like pulling off a band-aid, Blaine had needed to go back with everyone else, prove to the glee club—and to himself—that he's strong, that he can keep his head up and do this. He may be on HIV antivirals for the next six months just to be safe with testing once a month for the next three, and he may have a reluctant therapy session twice a week, but he's still Blaine Anderson. He's kept his head up though hardships before.

He just hadn't counted on the school newspaper or Jacob's nosy reporter skills. He didn't count on dozens of pairs of eyes staring at him as he walks down the hall, judging and scrutinizing as whispers follow him, hissing and hushed and overwhelming. _Look, there's Blaine Anderson, the boy who was raped._

The paper flutters to the floor, and Blaine keeps his eyes down as he walks, faster and faster, towards the bathroom. It seems to stretch out endlessly, the hallway lengthening each time he seems to get closer, and by the time he pushes the door open he's hyperventilating and unable to draw in deep, satisfying breaths. It's warm outside, but Blaine has on a cardigan that he keeps tugging down over his wrists. He does it now as he shuts the door, tries to compose himself but ultimately fails.

His sobs echo in the empty room, and he drops to his knees, palms flat on the chilly linoleum. It's not even an hour into the day and already Blaine can't deal with this. He can't handle it. He hasn't seen any of the glee club, and he hasn't even heard from Sam since last week. Kurt hasn't called, but he'd given Blaine instructions to call him if he'd needed to. Blaine had refused, had wanted desperately to prove that he didn't need to hang onto his ex-boyfriend for support, no matter how they've patched things up since October.

He can't go back out there, not with everyone knowing, not with everyone having seen him all but run to the bathroom and slam the door. Blaine just wants things to be normal again. He doesn't want people to stare at him, to whisper about him. He doesn't want this, he hadn't _asked_ for it. He hasn't even had a chance yet to go to Coach Sylvester and tell her that he's quitting the Cheerios, that just the thought of wearing that uniform again makes him ill.

On autopilot Blaine finds himself taking out his phone and unlocking the screen. He goes to Kurt's contact, presses the number and brings his phone to his ear. He lets it ring. And ring. And ri—

_"Blaine?"_ Kurt, so concerned, so worried. _"Are you all right?"_

Blaine opens his mouth to answer, but he begins sobbing instead, loud and echoing, and he doesn't care. In between sobs he manages to gasp it out, _Jacob printed it out in the school newspaper and now everyone knows_ , and saying it aloud makes the compressing, suffocating feeling even stronger.

_"Blaine,"_ Kurt says. _"Blaine, calm down, okay? I can hardly understand you."_

It's difficult to calm down. Blaine tries, but his body doesn't want to cooperate. God, this is why he'd never wanted to call Kurt. He's this pathetic, sniveling mess who can barely hold himself together. Kurt is always so in-control, always knows what to do. Blaine doesn't deserve him.

Gradually his sobs subside, then his breathing returns to normal. He listens to the drip of the faucet, stares at the beige stall doors. He sucks in a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and says, "J-Jacob somehow found out about wh—what happened to me, and he published it in the s-school newspaper."

Kurt swears, says, _"That bastard. Where are you now?"_

"The bathroom. I thought I could do this but I was wrong, Kurt. I'm sorry. I'm so pathetic."

_"No, you're not, Blaine. You had the courage to come back to school in the first place despite what happened. That's not pathetic."_

Blaine begins crying again, whether it's from the tenderness in Kurt's voice or the situation as a whole Blaine doesn't know, but he presses the phone tighter to his ear, curls in on himself and says, "I don't even know who I am anymore."

_"You're my Blaine,"_ Kurt replies immediately. His voice is firm, and it leaves no room for argument. Blaine hangs onto it like he's always hung on to everything Kurt says. _"You're brave, and strong, and so, so smart and I know you can make it through this day. Do you want me to come pick you up?"_

Blaine hesitates, mulling the offer over, before ultimately shaking his head. "No."

It's tempting, to leave now and avoid everyone, but he also knows in the long run, that it's going to make everything worse. The school knows now what's happened, and they've seen Blaine just days later. Unintentionally he'd shown them that he's stronger than they may think.

So why doesn't he feel like it? Why does he feel like he's a breeze away from being a collapsing house of cards? Why can he still not sleep at night, and why do the fading aches and bruises drive him to hunch over the toilet bowl every time he thinks about them, sees them?

Blaine isn't okay. He isn't brave. Kurt is wrong. But he also isn't going to give up already. He wants to go back to being normal Blaine, senior class president and male glee club lead. The past is the past, and Blaine's going to try and do everything he can to return to who he was before last Wednesday afternoon.

"I'll be fine," he adds, and he hangs up. Because Kurt is too good for him, has done too much already. Blaine doesn't deserve to listen to Kurt's praises anymore, not when they're not true.

There are deep bags under his eyes when he looks at the mirror over the sink. His hair is barely held down with gel, and the waves are bumpy and visible, but he doesn't care. He tries to hide the fear that swells up whenever someone brushes past him or comes from around the corner of behind him or from a hallway. He tries to hide how much he's falling apart, how much he hates himself and thinks _I deserve this_ whenever possible. It's hard to get better, but you have to start somewhere, right?

Blaine makes it to fourth period before someone rushes down the adjacent hallway just as Blaine is rounding the corner. They collide, Blaine falling to the floor, and it's like his mind shuts off as he huddles in on himself, makes his body smaller and smaller as he pleads with the boy, _no, no, don't hurt me, please don't, not again, no, please_. Someone touches his shoulder and he screams.

It's Tina and Sam who take him to the nurse. It's Sam who calls his mom, Tina who pets his hair and holds his hand until she arrives. It's both William and Stella who arrive to take him to the car, and it's William who drives while Stella sits in the back with him, tells him through jumbled, distant words that he's having a panic attack, that he needs to calm down. That he's okay, she's here, nothing is going to hurt him.

After this, Blaine lets himself stop thinking at all.


	7. Before It Gets Better

Mr. Schue holds rehearsal in the auditorium that afternoon. One by one the club members slowly gather and sit cross-legged on the floor. Everyone stares out into the darkness, not wanting to be the first one to speak. Being together like this reminds them too much. It is, eventually, Mr. Schue who speaks first.

"For the rest of the year, rehearsal will be held here," he says, standing up just outside the circle. He's trying to appear calm and collected, but it isn't hard to miss the deadened look in his eyes, the lack of enthusiasm or _anything_ in his voice. He's like a robot, programmed to say these things without really feeling anything.

"Is it even worth it to rehearse anymore?" Kitty asks, sudden and sharp and challenging. "Does it even matter after what happened last week?"

Mr. Schue opens his mouth, but he closes it almost immediately, looks away. He doesn't have it in him anymore to argue. Kitty stands up, her jaw set, her eyes ablaze. It's similar to the look she'd had in the choir room—a mixture of anguish, hatred, fear. The room stays silent as she looks around. "Do any of you even _care_?"

"Of course we do," Marley says, but one glare and she's quieting down again, huddling up close to Ryder's side.

"None of you have any idea what Blaine is going through. We can rehearse all we want for this stupid competition, but even if we do win it won't matter." There is palpable surprise when a tear slides down Kitty's face. She doesn't bother to wipe it away, and there's an almost-noticeable fissure in her carefully-created demeanor. "Blaine isn't here today because he had a panic attack." She looks at Tina and Sam, who look down, avoiding her eyes. "He had a panic attack because some bastard ruined his life and took something from him last week. We were all there. We saw it happen."

A collective shudder runs through the room. It's been something that's been pushed out of minds, hidden away for the darkness of nightmares. No one wants to admit what they'd seen. No one wants to admit that they're just as changed, that whatever vision they'd had for themselves outside of high school is going to be different in some way now.

"Blaine did it for us." Kitty's voice trembles now. Her hands clench and unclench at her sides. "He kept the rest of us safe, and this is how you repay him, by trying to pretend that it didn't happen?"

Her voice cracks, thunderous in the auditorium like a sharp bolt of lightning. She doesn't sit, but she sways where she stands, her hands covering her face as her shoulders shake. There is silence again, but, slowly, Marley stands up. Then Tina, then Sam, Brittany and then Jake and Ryder with Artie wheeling behind him; silently, in perfect synchronicity, they come together in the middle as one.

\----

Kurt isn't surprised when Stella Anderson calls him just after noon, her voice stressed but not necessarily frantic. Kurt wants to be mad at Blaine for lying, for being stubborn and going back even when both he and Kurt knew that he shouldn't, but it's impossible. Blaine is one of the most stubborn people Kurt knows, and forcing himself through something is his way of showing that he's okay—even when he's not.

Kurt hangs up and goes downstairs to tell his father. Burt is still stung by the way Blaine had reacted, but he understands, Kurt thinks. They'd sat down that night and through tears and hugs and toast they'd talked, they'd cried, and they'd wondered. It wasn't a matter of simply asking _when_ , but asking _how_. Not _when_ will Blaine be okay, but _how_ will he be okay? _How_ will he deal with this? _How_ will everyone deal with this?

There isn't any way that they can move on with their lives and put this behind him. There's an entire group of kids who witnessed it, kids that Kurt knows, has talked to, has been friends with. Blaine isn't alone, but he's also pushing everyone away. And though Kurt won't admit it, it hurts.

He gets to Blaine's house faster than he'd care to admit, and Stella leads him upstairs. William is on the couch in the living room, and Kurt's eyebrows rise in surprise when he sees him. They both nod in acknowledgement before Kurt ascends the stairs, taking them slowly. His hand is gripped tight onto the banister.

Blaine's door is ajar, light spilling out onto the cream-colored hallway rug. He knocks, once, before pushing the door open and stepping in. Kurt holds his breath, unaware that he is, and realizes it only when his eyes finally land on Blaine in the center of his bed and he exhales, slow and uneven.

Blaine's wearing a sweater despite it being almost unseasonably warm outside, but Kurt doesn't say anything about it as he takes a seat in the chair against the wall. The silence drags on, broken only by the ticking of the clock on Blaine's vanity. Kurt's picture is still face down. He wonders if Blaine has really even noticed that he's here.

"Hey." Kurt whispers it softly as he runs his hand over the rough denim of his jeans. Blaine's hunched over, head bent down and legs crossed. He doesn't move, doesn't say anything. "Blaine, come on, talk to me."

Blaine shakes his head.

"Blaine, sweetheart, look at me."

Blaine finally looks up, then, and Kurt's already prepared for the flat look in his eyes. It doesn't make it any less scary, but it makes it a little more bearable.

(He tries not to think about how those eyes have haunted his dreams.)

"Don't call me that."

Kurt raises an eyebrow. "What do you want me to call you, then?"

Blaine squeezes his eyes shut, his face lined in pain. He uncrosses his legs and presses them close to his chest. His arms wrap around his shins and he shakes his head. "Don't do that, Kurt. Just. Please. Don't."

"Don't do what?"

"You—you know what you're doing. Treating me like I'm normal. Like I—I'm okay. Like we're still dating."

"We're still best friends," Kurt replies. His chest tightens painfully even as he reminds himself that this isn't Blaine, that he's just lashing out because he has too much going on and no outlet to let it off in. everything is messy and confusing and painful and it's getting harder and harder every day. "You're still normal, Blaine. You are."

"No." Blaine shakes his head, pressing his palms to his temples. He buries his face in his knees, shakes his head again. Kurt gets the urge to rush over to the bed, to take Blaine into his arms and tell him it's all going to be okay. That he's here now and that's all that matters.

But he can't. There's so much different, so much gone wrong, and it's all completely and utterly unfixable. Even when it's okay it's never going to be okay. There's always going to be a thin wall now, something that no one is going to be able to get past. This is Blaine in front of him, but yet…it isn't Blaine. It's a broken, terrified boy.

Kurt tries again, desperate now. He rises from the chair, wrings his hands together in an uncharacteristic display of anxiety, of fear and hopelessness. "Blaine, listen to me. I know it seems hard, but it's going to be—"

"Don't you _dare_ tell me that it's all going to be okay." Blaine is off the bed in a flash, and it's so fast that Kurt has no time to react. The blank stare is gone, replaced with cold fury and heated rage. There is still pain, fresh even after all these days, and Blaine's fingers tremble only slightly as he undoes the buttons of his sweater, rips it off and tosses it to the floor. He has on a simple button-up underneath, and he yanks it from the waistband of his pants, tugs it up until the hem is high up on his abdomen.

Kurt's eyes trail down, and he wishes immediately that they hadn't. The gasp that leaves his mouth is loud and almost theatrical, and he immediately brings his hand over to cover his mouth.

On Blaine's hips, bold and purple and beginning to yellow at the edges from age, are bruises, huge and menacing. They're in the shape of cruel hands, and Kurt stares like it's a trainwreck. He stares, feels the bile rise up in his throat, feels his world spinning rapidly out of control. He wants to speak, wants to offer _something_ , but he can't make his throat work.

"Does this look normal to you?!" Blaine yells. His eyes are welling rapidly, shimmering with the crystals of tears. He lets his shirt fall but the image stays in Kurt's mind, branded there. The hips that he himself has touched countless times, that he's gripped onto in the throes of passion, that he's worshipped with tongue and teeth, are now marred with something dark, something that surpasses skin deep and bruises the soul, leaving an ugly scar there forever.

The tears brim over; fall in rapid succession as they streak down Blaine's red-cheeked face. He stands his full height, but he still seems smaller, more fragile.

Kurt unglues his tongue, drops his shaking hand and says, weak, "Blaine—"

"I was _raped_ , Kurt! Is that what you wanted to hear?" Blaine shouts. His voice cracks, but his eyes are like the flames of hell as they flicker with his bottled-up fury. "Or how about how he got me off, huh? I came when he was fucking me against my _will_ in front of my friends. I bet _that's_ what you wanted to hear, isn't it? I am _disgusting_ , Kurt. I'm fucking disgusting and I deserved it!"

Kurt isn't aware of his own tears until one slides down his face to his lips and into the crease of his mouth. He tongues away the salt, Blaine's words ringing in his ears like a ceaseless slap. This had all been a mistake. Blaine's right—he doesn't deserve Kurt. But not for the reasons he thinks. He doesn't deserve Kurt because he deserves someone better, someone who will know how to handle this.

"I—I don't know what you want me to say," Kurt sobs. He can feel himself breaking, crumbling like an old mountain succumbing to the force of Mother Nature. For once he's the one who buries his face in his hands, lets himself go as wave after wave of anguish rolls over him, drowns him, suffocates him. "Blaine, god, I still _love_ you."

"Do me a favor and don't." Blaine's eyes are still hard, but Kurt catches what he thinks may be a flicker of something else. He sags, his entire body caving in, and collapses onto the bed. He rests his elbows on his thighs, drags the heels of his palms across his forehead. His voice is muffled, weary, when he says, "Please leave."

Kurt doesn't have it in him to argue anymore. His seams are unraveling and he's powerless to stop them.

He runs into William and Stella in the living room, standing side-by-side and looking towards the stairs with worried faces. Kurt sighs, wipes his eyes with his palm and says, "You heard."

"Hard not to," William says, his lips thin. He's always been the spitting image of Cooper with his tall, lean build and bright blue eyes. His hair is grayer, kept shorter, but he carries the same commanding presence that Blaine's brother does.

Stella is Blaine through and through. Her dark hair is wavy, not curling, and is kept gorgeously long. She's just barely taller than Rachel, and is slightly stockier, but there is no denying that she is beautiful.

"I'm sorry," Kurt replies. It comes out as no more than a whisper. He hangs his head. He'd been hoping he could get out before Blaine's parents noticed how much he's screwed everything up. "I'll just—"

A gentle hand on his arm and Kurt looks up into William's graciously-lined eyes. "He still cares about you, you know."

"I'm just messing everything up. Even when I think I'm doing it right I'm…not, and I can't take it anymore. Blaine deserves better than me."

"To Blaine, there _is_ no one better," Stella says. She offers a wan smile, but it brightens up the room like a bouquet of exotic flowers. "I know things aren't easy right now, but Blaine starts therapy this week, and, well, William and I were hoping you could be around."

"He needs you," William adds. It takes everything in Kurt not to laugh.

He bites back his retort, though, and studies the pair. They've both been far more accepting than Kurt's ever though possible, and surprisingly he feels just as at home here as he does at his actual house. He knows that William had struggled at first, remembers Blaine's stories about the car, but once he and Blaine had started dating William had warmed up.

They're asking for his _help_ , and that in itself is surprising. Kurt doesn't know what to say—he wants to say no, wants to admit defeat and fly back to New York. But…he also knows that he can't give up on Blaine. Not like this. Stubborn as he may be, there is still a side of him that needs this, needs _Kurt_ the way Kurt's always needed him, and it's just going to take time and patience and a lot more tact than he's been showing.

He'd researched over the weekend, found articles and articles about what to do, how to behave. He tries to follow it, but when he actually sees the aftermath, sees the real thing and not just some words written by a stranger, it all flies out of his head and leaves him running on autopilot— _protect comfort love heal_.

"Do you think it's a good idea?" Kurt asks.

"I think it's the best option we have," Stella says. The words aren't much, but they say everything that is going silent. It's hard to miss the flicker of worry across her face.

\----

Kurt meets up with Sam at the Lima Bean the next day after school lets out. It's odd, and a little awkward, but Kurt is eternally grateful to this boy, because without him he wouldn't be here. Or maybe he would—it's impossible to tell, but it's because of Sam that Kurt even knew.

They take a seat by the window, and Kurt can't help but glance over at his and Blaine's usual seat—right now it's occupied by a group of teenage girls giggling over iced mochas and frappes. Kurt envies their ignorance and innocence and yearns for the carefree days of last year, when it was him and Blaine there, so young and naïve in their perception of love and the world; back when flirty touches were all it took and all that mattered because it was all new, the attention and admiration and _friendship_.

He drags his attention back to his own table only when Sam clears his throat and says, setting down his cup, "So."

Kurt blinks back the onslaught of tears and digs his nails into the hot cardboard around his cup. He has no desire to drink this, but it had been habit, something to do with his hands while they talk. It had been weird not to hear Blaine's smooth, boyish voice chiming in his usual medium drip. "Thank you, Sam. For calling me."

Sam nods, looks away. His eyes are distant, lips pursed, and Kurt wonders what's going through his mind. He'd been Blaine's tether, after all, and the only other detailed account given from the kids in the choir room. He'd seen everything, and Kurt can only guess how it must feel like there's something ugly and evil implanted permanently inside of him now. "No problem, dude."

"Are you…okay?"

Sam laughs, short and sharp, and shakes his head. It's not angry like Blaine's would have been, but resigned. "Not really. I still have nightmares, you know? We all do. We're never going to forget this."

Kurt winces and looks down at the wood grain of the table. He runs his fingers over it, watches the smears that they leave behind. A couple walks past them, hand in hand. "I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for?" Sam raises his brows, takes a drink of his coffee.

Kurt shrugs. He doesn't really know why he's apologizing, either, but he doesn't know what to say, and he's so _sick_ of it, like his internal dictionary has been wiped clean and all he can say is _I'm sorry, please be okay, I don't know what to do_.

He says, instead, "Do you think Blaine's going to be okay?"

It's Sam's turn to wince, and Kurt almost regrets asking the question in the first place. "I don't know. I haven't been to see him since…then because I don't know what to say to him. I know he's still the same dude and all, but I…you didn't see him after, Kurt. He was like a robot. I know it was the shock and all, and he was still in pain and trying to process it, but…that wasn't the Blaine that I knew."

Kurt sees hollow eyes, a slumped figure, a beaten-down boy who had every right to be happy and healthy and enjoying the rest of his senior year. He hears the anger, feels the sharp barb of the words. "I know."

"He won't be the same."

It hits Kurt like a freight train to the chest. He takes a gulp of coffee, breathes past the scald and burn and new rawness on his tongue. He wishes that trauma could just be like burn on your tongue—it hurts, but only for a little while. Eventually that hurt sheds, disappears, and in its place is shiny newness. But life leaves scars, deep and impenetrable, and those scars keep the pain fresh. It never goes away. It becomes a part of you, no matter what you do.

All around them are teenagers, happy and talking and holding hands. There are adults reading the newspaper or typing away on their laptops. The baristas make the coffee and dole out the pastries. Everything is normal for them. There is laughter on their lips, in their eyes, etched onto their faces. There is happiness in their postures, their gestures, the smiles on their lips as they drink and eat and talk.

They're all happy on the outside, but Kurt finds himself wondering, as he and Sam drink and talk and sit in the occasional long silence, just how many of them are hiding those dark demons and heavy scars.


	8. The Darkness Gets Bigger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE HEED: trigger warning for a suicide attempt.

**To Blaine (7:23PM):  
** _Hey, are you okay?_

**To Blaine (7:25PM):  
** _I just wanted to make sure you're holding up._

**To Blaine (7:30PM):  
** _I'm sorry._

Every message that Sam types out is deleted in one smooth motion, and the blinking cursor leaves him a little more frustrated each time. He and Kurt had left the coffee shop a few hours ago, and since then he's been staring at his phone, a blank text open with Blaine's number on the receiving end. But he has no idea what to say.

Which is ridiculous—Blaine is his best friend. They've talked about everything that they possibly could before, and never once has either of them been at a loss for words. This is what frustrates Sam most of all: he can't even _be there_ for Blaine. In the face of it, while it was happening, he was, but since then there's been something halting him, keeping him away, and it makes him feel sick.

He knows it's because of what happened, where Blaine is now and how differently he behaves. In the choir room, Sam had held on to some fantasy that when it was all over things could be okay. Some part of him had dulled down the horrible reality of it all, made it part of the quotidian. He, like everyone else, had wanted to believe that it wasn't what it really was.

And now Blaine is changed, leaving Sam terrified that he's lost a best friend, and, more than that, an amazing person. It's why he can't visit Blaine and hasn't yet—he's scared of what he'll see. He'd only actually seen Blaine for maybe twenty minutes in school, most of it during his panic attack, and that had brought back the memories of the shooting, had made Sam feel so physically ill that once he'd called Blaine's mom he'd left, huddled in a corner stall in the boy's bathroom for half an hour while he retched, his body shaking with horrible dry heaves.

It's selfish. That's the conclusion he's come to after hours of staring at the ceiling. It's selfish to be like this when Blaine has ten times the reason to be falling to pieces. No one else in the club is behaving like this—but, then again, no one else in the club has bothered to go see Blaine, either.

Sam's stomach wrenches and he grimaces, rolling over on his bed and curling in on himself. He'd done what he could in getting Kurt down here, but even that doesn't seem to be helping. If anything, Sam chances a guess at it making things worse.

_You're bringing in his ex-boyfriend at the lowest point of his life—of course it's making things worse. Blaine had already blamed himself for everything and this won't help him heal._

But what else could he do? He knows—he thinks—that the best thing is to let Blaine work through this on his own, give him independence and not tell him that it's going to be okay. That was as far as he'd got, at least, when researching, and he can kind of see the reason for it.

His mom had offered to pay for counseling, and Miss Pillsbury had asked all of them individually if they'd like to meet with her after school for a few weeks, but Sam had refused both offers even though most of the club was at least seeing Miss Pillsbury. Now, though, he's beginning to regret it: sleeping is hard, and concentrating is even harder. He keeps reliving that afternoon, but he tells himself that it's just because the memory is still fresh, that it'll go away with time.

Sam closes his eyes, swallows past the bile in his throat. He just wants everything to be back to normal, wants it to be Wednesday morning when he'd met Blaine as his locker and everything had been okay. He wants his best friend back, wants to not look at all his friends and see the echo of pain that will always be there from now on. He wishes that he wasn't a coward.

The funny thing about wishes, though, is the selfish amount of want in them.

\----

Blaine doesn't want to be here.

The therapist, a woman in her forties with neat, graying-brown hair and a kind, well-lined smile, seems nice enough, but Blaine had seen her split-second surprise when it'd been him in the waiting area outside her office, knows exactly what she's thinking: _it's a boy?_ It had been what everyone had been thinking in the hospital, when he was in that godforsaken room ( _too many memories, so much good and now so much bad pain pain flashes of what he and Kurt used to be and it's like torture_ ) unable to stand.

_It's a boy how could it be a boy boys don't get raped—_

Blaine hadn't needed to hear it to know it was buzzing in the rooms like a pesky, pestilent fly. He knows its presence is here now as he grips at the thighs of his jeans, fusses with the rolled-up cuffs with the side of his Sperry's. It's the first day he's bothered to actually look presentable, but it's a front, a comfort that he needs if he's going to go out into public. His cardigan is cozy, over-warm for this time of year, but Blaine curls into it, drags the soft fabric over his body like a cocoon, a cage of wings to protect him from the outside world.

The couch he's on is long, a comfortable, worn-in brown leather that creaks when he moves. The office is small but breathable, and behind him is a neat set of bookshelves stacked with heavy, official-looking books and ceramic decorative cats. The window to his right is tall, opening to the bright blue of the sky outside and the spring-green leaves on the trees.

The therapist—Dr. Beaumarchais, Blaine reminds himself—clicks her pen and smiles. To anyone else it's probably friendly, reassuring, but Blaine eyes her skeptically, arms wrapped tightly around his torso. His fingertips rest on the yellowing, fading pain of his bruises and he grits his teeth, closes his eyes.

"So, Blaine," Dr. Beaumarchais says. Her voice is soft, gentle, and lightly accented. She crosses her legs, her chocolate brown pencil skirt hugging her thighs tightly. She's wearing a pair of sensible but stylish heels. All of this Blaine takes in as he counts his breaths, counts his heartbeats, and wonders how long he's been in here already. It feels like an eternity and yet not at the same time. "How are you today?"

Blaine laughs, harsh and barking. It's been a week, officially, and Blaine still feels like he did in the first seconds of the aftermath. His bruises may be fading but the flashbacks aren't. "My mom pays you to ask me _that_? _Anyone_ could ask me that."

Dr. Beaumarchais doesn't react to the barb; she merely smiles, nods, and says, "That's true, Blaine, anyone could. But do they?"

 _No_. Blaine opens his mouth, then shuts it and shakes his head. He draws his legs up, sits Indian-style and hunches so his elbows are resting on his thighs. The rug is a thick, fluffy white like the sheepskin rug at the foot of his parents' bed. The track lighting overhead gleams on the mahogany floors.

As much as Blaine hates to admit it, she's right: no one but Kurt has bothered to talk to him, to even try and glean what he's feeling—and he knows he's being uncooperative, he does, but asking every once in awhile doesn't help.

"That's what I thought." The pen scribbles across the notepad. Blaine still stares down at the floor, his mind a jumbled mess of incoherent, half-formed thoughts. He can feel the horrible faint edges of another panic attack and tries out the breathing exercises the nurse at school had told him.

"What are you feeling right now, Blaine?"

Blaine breathes in, out, slowly and deeply. He focuses on the oxygen going through his nose, the long, slow exhale through his mouth. "Like I don't want to be here."

 _Breathe in, breathe out_.

"And why don't you want to be here?"

 _In through the nose, out through the mouth_.

"Because I don't need to be."

Sharp pain bites through Blaine's thoughts, and he loosens the tight grip of his hands on his legs. Dr. Beaumarchais is quiet for a few moments, her brown eyes intent as she studies Blaine. The scrutinous attention makes Blaine's stomach twist uncomfortably.

"I know something bad happened," she begins slowly, "and I know that for a boy your age who's already so confident in himself this is hard, but you can't just brush this aside if you want to heal." A flash of pain flits across her face, deepening the creases momentarily, before it's gone and she straightens up, uncrossing and re-crossing her legs.

Blaine shakes his head, bites his lip. He feels the sting of tears and closes his eyes angrily, turning his head to the side and pressing his chin against his shoulder. His back hunches as he draws his head down, his fingers gripping tightly at his cardigan as he wraps his arms safely around himself again. There isn't anything to discuss: he was chosen out of all of his friends and was raped because he deserved it. He came because he liked it.

"I don't want to talk about it," he replies, his voice small and childlike.

"You _need_ to talk about it," Dr. Beaumarchais presses gently. "Blaine, none of this is your fault. "

Blaine's tried so hard all of his life to be strong, to keep a brave face no matter what. When he'd found out he was gay, he never let anyone know that he cried himself to sleep every night before he told his parents. When he'd been attacked—both times—he never let anyone see just how much he was hurting, how much it hurt _him_ to be treated like that. He's always just told himself that sometimes the darkness has to get bigger before it gets better. And, for awhile, it had: Dalton and the Warblers and then _Kurt_ , and despite nearly losing his eye Blaine had been happy, _in love_ , and it hadn't gotten to him like it would have if he'd been at his old school—because he finally wasn't alone, wasn't constantly searching for that missing factor in his life.

And then he'd screwed it all up.

He doesn't want to deal with this anymore—the looks, the whispers, the pitied glances and the avoided looks in the hall. The choir room is dark, unused. There isn't a soul in the school who doesn't know. It feels like his entire life has become a reality show and that all of his secrets are just spilling out and spilling out in a ceaseless tide.

"I don't want to," he says, trying to quiet down that horrible voice. _You deserved it you deserved it you're disgusting filthy a pathetic excuse for a human being and you should just_ die _already_ — "Nothing happened. I'm fine. I don't know why my mom made me do this, anyway."

He forces his voice into a careful monotone, one he's perfected over the years to hide his true feelings from everyone else. Dr. Beaumarchais eyes him skeptically and opens her mouth, but when she takes a peek at her watch her lips thin and her eyes narrow.

"That's all the time we have today," she says. She stands, holding out a hand that Blaine takes as steadily as he can. "I'll see you Friday, same time?"

Blaine nods, his jaw set. With any luck he won't need that second appointment.

\----

Kurt's been sitting on the Andersons' front step for fifteen minutes already when Blaine's car pulls into the driveway. He puts away his phone and stands, mustering up what he hopes at least looks like a genuine smile—he's happy to see Blaine, but he's stressed and exhausted.

He gives Blaine a hug that lasts a few seconds longer than normal, and Kurt's stomach flips pleasantly when they part and he sees that Blaine's smiling, his eyes glinting in the late-afternoon sun. He's hyperaware of the weight of Blaine's hands on his back, of the familiarity of this position and its closeness, and he flushes, ducking his head and stepping a few inches back. "Hey."

"Hey." Blaine's still smiling, but there's something hollow, something robotic about it, even though he looks more normal than he has since Kurt got here. Maybe the therapy session went good, Kurt hopes as he watches Blaine unlock the door.

Once they settle down in the living room, Kurt with his laptop and makeup assignments emailed by his professors and Blaine with a book, it almost feels normal again, like it had before they'd become boyfriends. The silence, though it stretches on, is comfortable, and whenever Kurt looks up and catches Blaine with something akin to pained longing and—regret?—on his face he's treated to a genuine smile, the kind he'd never seen Blaine give anyone else.

"So how'd it go?" Kurt finally asks, looking up from the screen. "It seems like it went pretty well."

Blaine shrugs, turning a page. He crosses his ankles on the soft fabric of the ottoman. "It went okay. Hopefully I won't need many more. I kind of just want to be done already."

Kurt nods, worrying on his lower lip as he looks down. After his first two disastrous attempts to try and understand Blaine's mindset he's decided that the easiest way is to agree and not wonder. He trusts Blaine to tell him what he's really feeling, and he also trusts Blaine enough to know that he'll follow his heart and gut and know his own needs.

It's none of his business, really. They're not dating anymore, and Kurt's obligated only as far as a friend would go, but Blaine had been—still is—his first love, and Kurt knows that, no matter what happens and if they get together in the end or not, he'll never forget him.

"I'm glad," Kurt says sincerely, giving Blaine a little smile. "I just want you to get better."

Blaine eventually relocates to the couch and sits on the opposite end of where Kurt is. He turns on the TV and Kurt puts away what's left of his homework and they sit and watch trashy reality TV like they used to. Kurt misses the warm, secure press of Blaine's body against his and yearns to runs his fingers over Blaine's hair, but he takes what he gets and prefers this over the screaming, inconsolable Blaine.

"I'm kind of tired," Blaine says when _Real Housewives of Orange County_ ends. He turns, gives Kurt a playful pout that makes his heart twist painfully at the memories that look brings. "And my dad will be home in a half-hour, so you can leave if you want."

Kurt purses his lips and eyes Blaine skeptically. "I don't know…are you sure you're okay? if you're feeling bad I don't want to leave you."

Blaine shakes his head, runs a hand over his hair and fixes his cardigan. "I'm fine. Honestly. The session just wore me out and I really want to sleep it off."

Kurt sighs, stands. "If you're sure."

Blaine follows suit, steps over to Kurt and hugs him tightly. When he pulls back he presses his lips to Kurt's cheek, and the warm, damp press of them sends tingles down Kurt's spine. His eyes widen, and he stares, dumbfounded, at Blaine.

"I'm sure," Blaine replies, smiling.

As normal as everything had been, and as much as Kurt had felt like he and Blaine were back in their old element, when he pulls away, Blaine waving from the front step, Kurt can't help but feel like he's made a terrible mistake.

\----

Blaine is steadfast in tying the rope, his fingers shaking even though they work quickly. His eyes are strangely dry, and for once his mind is clear and calm. The piece of paper he'd left out is blank, and the pen next to it is still capped. His phone is off and thrown onto his bed. A hook is still drilled into the ceiling, leftover from when the basement was being renovated and his punching bag had been relocated into his room, and it's there that he places the stool from his parents' room.

He checks the rope he'd found in the garage, tugs on the knots to make sure they're tight. He'd lied a little when he'd told Kurt that his dad was coming home in a half-hour—he'll actually be home in an hour—but he swallows back the guilt, shakes his head and tells himself that this is for the best, that this is what he needs.

He's sick of hurting; of feeling like everyday is a struggle, a fight against himself and what he refuses to come to terms with. He's been strong enough to handle bashing, hateful words, and friends turned foes, but this is beyond his reach, has injured him in places that won't ever heal.

Once Blaine would have died for his friends, for his family and for _Kurt_ , but now he wants— _needs_ —to die for himself, to end this nightmare, to stop seeing the stares and hearing the whispers and knowing that he's never going to be the same person again, no matter what he does.

The stool is sturdy when he steps up onto it, and the rope is smooth as she slides it around his throat. He remembers Karofsky, flashes back to the conversation he and Kurt had had afterwards, how they'd both promised to always be there to never try and do that no matter how bad it got.

Now Blaine laughs, and it echoes in the openness of the room, in the silence of the house. It reminds him that he's alone, that he did this to himself, that, in the end, he has no one.

He feels the first tear finally slip down his face, and he closes his eyes and whispers, hoarsely, "I'm sorry, Kurt."

He doesn't hesitate when he kicks away the stool from under himself.

\----

Kurt's car isn't in the driveway when William Anderson gets home an hour earlier than usual, but he doesn't let himself panic over it: Kurt's a trustworthy kid, and more than likely he'd just left early for whatever reason and William doesn't blame him if he did. He knows that he and Stella are asking a lot of him, but they also both know that it's for the best. Kurt is who Blaine has always opened up to, and despite their recent troubles William hopes that this can mend what they've broken.

"Blaine?" he calls out when he steps into the kitchen. He sets the mail onto the counter. "I'm home."

There's no reply as William walks through the kitchen, through the living room. He pauses at the foot of the stairs, peers up into the second-story landing. His brow furrows, and though he tries to calm himself, tries to tell himself that he's just overreacting, his heart begins to pound. "Blaine?"

Still no answer. William grips hard onto the railing as he climbs and takes the steps as steadily as he can. Blaine's probably sleeping—the therapy session had probably just exhausted him, that's all. That's why Kurt's not here. Or maybe Kurt is and they're both just sleeping. William's sure Kurt has been sleeping as poorly as Blaine.

Blaine's door is slightly ajar as William stops just outside of it. He swallows hard, takes a few deep breaths. _It's okay, it's okay. There's nothing wrong, everything is fine. He's just asleep. He has to be asleep_.

William pushes the door open, staggering back immediately at the sight in front of him. His hand flies to his mouth, and a choked sob rips from his throat in a guttural, primitive cry. Bile rises up, quick and fast and burning, and he feels his knees quake, feels his legs threaten to give out and drop him to the floor. The rope still creaks slightly as it sways on the hook, and it's a few seconds before William realizes that he's speaking and sobbing.

"Blaine, god, Blaine, _no_ , please not this, son, _no_. No, no, no, nononono—"

Everything's a blur after that, Blaine's body warm in William's arms, the rope creaking and quaking as his pocketknife saws quickly through it. He easily hefts Blaine's weight over his shoulder when the rope finally gives, and he eases the noose off, eases Blaine onto the floor and doesn't pay attention to the red line around his neck. He checks for Blaine's pulse with trembling fingers, hovers his palm over Blaine's slightly parted lips for breath.

Faint, stuttered gusts of air—he's still breathing.


	9. Fade Away Together One Dream At A Time

_It's the choir room again. Blaine is on his hands and knees, the sea of familiar faces fuzzed, hazed. He's aware of sickening humiliation and of a terror he's never felt before in his life. He knows what he's going to do, what is going to happen: and he's accepted it, because it's what he has to do. He has no choice._

_The floor is cold under his palms. It hurts his knees. He thinks he'll remember this forever. Blaine scopes out the room, can't come up with Sam's comforting, familiar face, and suddenly he feels like he's drowning, like he's floundering on choppy seas with the bottom leagues and leagues under his feet. Without his tether Blaine is nowhere._

_He's too acutely aware of a presence behind him, that awful body of that awful man. Blaine closes his eyes, grits his teeth and feels his forehead scrunch up as he drops his head, swallows down a hysterical, terrified sob. He has to be brave; he has to keep it together. Blaine Anderson is a master at keeping things together._

_He can still taste the unfamiliar, bitter flesh, still feels its thickness choking him, making a toy—a_ doll _—out of him in front of everyone. Words, black as tar and just as suffocatingly thick, beat at the insides of his mind, call cloyingly out to him in this horrible moment in time._

You know it'd be better if you'd die. It isn't worth this, and it's always _you_ who has to play the hero. If you die, it'll all be over. It'll all be so much easier. You won't have to worry anymore. You won't have to live with what you've done, what you _will_ do.

_But Blaine knows that he can't do that._

_"Please," he whispers, fruitless and broken. The air of the room is chilly on his suddenly bare ass, and he bites his lip, bites back tears of humiliation, of fear. "Please."_

_But the touch, when it comes, isn't the rough-fingered press Blaine remembers: it's soft, gentle, and there's something achingly familiar about it._

_No gun presses to his temple; instead, the body leans down over Blaine's back, and the room shimmers with its own light for a moment, the edges growing fuzzed, the bright pinpricks of everyone's eyes becoming sharper, more honed. Like they're the focal point of this._

_"Blaine." The voice is chilled, high-pitched, but it isn't the gunman's. Instead, it's the same gentle voice Blaine had tried not to imagine the entire time._

_It's Kurt._

_"No," he whimpers, shaking his head and trying to pull away, only to find that he's stuck to the floor, that Kurt's hands are tight on his hips, bruising bruising bruising. "Please, no, not you."_

_"It was me all along." Kurt's voice is a dark sneer, a teasing lilt. His breath is hot at Blaine's ear, and his hands run over Blaine's chest, down to where his cock is hanging limp between his legs. Blaine whimpers, whines, breathes out "no" over and over as Kurt's expert hands, trained to know just how to tease, are working at him, getting him hard. "You deserve this, Blaine. You deserve to be humiliated like you humiliated me. You filthy slut. I bet you fucking begged for it like you begged for that other boy's."_

_"No, no," Blaine gasps. Tears slip down his cheeks. "I never meant to hurt you, Kurt. I didn't. I—_ please _."_

 _"Liar." Kurt drops the pretense, slides into chilly, hard-edged, unforgiving. Hands back at Blaine's hips, and the raw pain, the searing hotness of his body giving way too quickly, too_ much _, overtakes him again. He screams, tries to, but his voice doesn't seem to work._

 _It's a dream; Blaine_ knows _it's a dream, but he can't wake up. There is a pull, a force, keeping him under no matter how hard he tries to resurface. It's like sliding into insanity, and all Blaine can hear, echoing off the walls as the constellations of star-bright eyes flicker and waver in an endless sea in front of Blaine, watching, laughing, waiting, is merciless laughter that is a cruel imitation of the laughter that Blaine used to know._

_\----  
_

Kurt puts the damp dishtowel down on the counter as his phone begins to ring. He pulls it from his pocket, waving away his dad's curious look as he shuts off the faucet and tries his hand on a clean tea towel. It's probably just Rachel—he's barely filled her in since he got here, and he feels bad about it but he knows that Blaine would appreciate it if he didn't, at least not yet. There are some things she needs to know, and there are some things she doesn't. Most of everything Kurt's seen falls under the "doesn't need to know" category.

He picks up the plate he'd been drying and presses his phone to his ear. "Hello?"

 _"Kurt?"_ Kurt starts in surprise at the sound of William Anderson's voice. He hadn't bothered checking the ID, and try as he might his heart begins to pound. Had Blaine told him that Kurt had left early? Is he mad? Kurt had only been doing what Blaine wanted him to, and Blaine had seemed _fine_ …

"Mr. Anderson?" Kurt asks, unable to keep the surprise from seeping into his voice. His brow furrows as he tries to justify why Blaine's father would be calling him. "Why are you—is Blaine okay?"

There's a strangled noise on the other line, something like a cross between a sob and a gasp, and when Kurt listens in he can faintly hear a bustle in the background, official-sounding voices and faint beeping. William definitely isn't home, and it definitely doesn't sound like a law firm would. Kurt sucks in a breath, tightens his grip on his phone and closes his eyes. It can't be anything serious. It just can't be. Blaine had been _fine_ , he'd been almost _normal_ when he'd asked Kurt to leave. They'd hugged, and he'd kissed Kurt on the cheek, and it'd been almost—almost like _old times_ , the days back when they were happy and so stupidly in love.

 _"Kurt…Blaine, he…"_ William stops, gasping out a sob. Kurt's chest tightens and the floor shifts uncertainly under his feet. He reaches out for nothing, blinks rapidly as he tries to breathe. He sways a little, can see the soundless way his dad rushes forward, can see his eyes widen and his lips move but can't hear anything besides a funny ringing in his ears and William Anderson's distressed, tear-filled voice on the other line. _"I found him i-in his room. Just—just there. He's in the hospital now, and—and he's stable but I thought you'd want to know. We'll be here all night and most of tomorrow if you want to stop by—"_

The last thing Kurt hears before the world goes black and the floor rises up to catch him is the sound of the dish in his hand shattering as the full meaning of William's words finally sinks in.

 _Blaine tried to kill himself_.

 _I wasn't there_.

 _It's all my fault_.

\----

"Kurt? Kurt?" William asks as the line stays silent, wiping a tear from his eye as he leans against the wall outside Blaine's ICU room. There's some scuffling, some movement and a muffled voice, and then the sound of the phone being clumsily picked up reaches William's ears.

An unfamiliar gruff voice answers. _"Is this Blaine's father?"_

"It's William Anderson, yes," William replies. This must be Burt. A nurse bustles down the hall, and William holds his breath as she approaches, letting it out only once she walks past. "Where's Kurt?"

_"He, uh…he's out cold. I've got him on the couch now. What's wrong with Blaine?"_

William squeezes his eyes shut, sets his jaw. He knows that Burt had come over right after the attack, that Blaine hadn't acted well to seeing him, and for some reason the thought of that reaction makes William all the more reticent to divulge the information even though he knows that Kurt would have. Burt Hummel is a trustworthy man, but William is paranoid, concerned more about his son's safety and wellbeing than any rationality.

But he has to tell Burt. He doesn't—he doesn't know what to _do_ anymore. They've tried everything, but Blaine isn't responding, hasn't even tried listening to them or to anyone else. Therapy had been his and Stella's last hope, followed by Kurt, and even those didn't work. They're trapped in a spiral, bad-bad-worse every single day, and it's exhausting. There is nothing to prepare you for this, and there is nothing to help get you out of it.

When he sleeps at night sometimes he still dreams of that phone call, of Stella's terrified, panicked, somehow-hollow voice.

_"William, please…please come home. It's Blaine. He's been hurt r-really ba—badly. There was a shooting a-at McKinley, and t-there was a gunman, and he—he—he was raped."_

"He…" William exhales, knows he has to go for it, say it outright like ripping off a band-aid. "He tried to kill himself. It must have been just minutes before I came home and…found him."

No amount of time is ever going to erase that memory, that _image_ , from his mind.

Burt sucks in a breath, and he doesn't speak right away. William fidgets with his cuff nervously, turning around to peek into Blaine's room where Stella is sitting bedside, Blaine's hand in hers. He'd needed to get out of there, had felt like he was suffocating from the moment he'd called the ambulance. He still doesn't know why Kurt hadn't been there, but he'd never explicitly asked Kurt to stay until he or Stella got home. How could they have known? Blaine had…since he'd transferred to Dalton he had _never_ shown any tendencies. He'd been withdrawn for this last week, and angry, sure, but William had never expected this.

 _"So he's…"_ Burt trails off, his voice hollow.

"He's okay," William says. It's a relief to say those two words even if Blaine is so very, very far from being okay. "He's on watch for a few days, and his—his throat will take some time to heal completely, but he's okay."

 _"When Kurt…wakes up,"_ Burt says, hesitant, _"I'll see what I can do, but I'm sure he'll want to come down there as soon as he can."_

"Blaine will probably be asleep," William says. "They put him on some medication when they brought him here."

They hang up, and William puts his phone away, runs his hands over his face. His mind is still completely jumbled, his thoughts rushing around and running into each other as he tries to process them, tries to process everything that's been happening. It's only been a week but it feels like a year, like a long, endless eternity. He's seen Blaine strike out, cower away, lock up everything inside of him until he's a shell on the outside, but he's never seen him _give up_.

Even though the boy in the bed in there is sallow-skinned, has rings around his eyes and looks thinner than Blaine has in a long time, William knows, without a doubt, that his son is still in there underneath the grime of his hardships. He's come out on top before, and he can do it again. William has faith in Blaine.

He has to, he thinks as he watches a nurse walk in to check Blaine's vitals: there's not much left to have faith in anymore.

\----

"Did you hear?" a girl in Sam's history class whispers. She's sitting in the row behind him, leaning over to her friend next to her and not even trying to be subtle. He rolls his eyes, grumbles under his breath as he sets his book and notebook on the desk in front of him. It's first hour, and it's still too early to be dealing with their catty gossip right now. He looks at the desk next to him on instinct, expects to see Blaine sitting there; his heart jolts painfully when the seat remains empty for the second day in a row. "Blaine Anderson is in the hospital."

Sam's whole body goes rigid as a strange tingling cold steals over him. He stares straight ahead, not daring to look back, not daring to believe what he's heard. The words on the blackboard begin to blur, and the background noise of shuffling papers and snapping binder rings and thudding backpacks as they hit the floor all fade away: he concentrates on the girl behind him, swallows hard and hopes that this is just a nightmare.

"Again?" her friend whispers, incredulous.

The first girl makes an affirmative noise. "My cousin works as a nurse, and she said that last night they brought in some kid who apparently tried to kill himself."

Sam's world fuzzes at the edges. He grips hard onto the sides of his desk to keep himself from falling over, swallows to dampen a mouth that's suddenly gone dry. He doesn't want to hear this. It's just stupid gossip in a school already still reeling from the biggest tragedy it's ever faced. What those girls are saying can't be true. Blaine would never do that—he'd told Sam that even back at his old school he'd never considered _that_. And he wouldn't lie, would he? He can bounce back from this. It might take awhile, might take the rest of the school year and the entire summer, but Blaine will be okay—right? There's no way that this is true; he can't be lying in the hospital right now. Sam hasn't even gotten the chance to talk to him yet—

"No way! Did she say—?"

"If anyone asks, I didn't tell you, but he apparently tried to hang himself in his room last night before his parents got home. His dad found him."

_No._

_No, it's not true._

_Blaine wouldn't—_

_It's not—_

Sam stumbles to his feet, his heavy textbook sliding from the smooth surface of his desk to crash to the floor. Everyone looks around in surprise, and Sam feels their eyes on him as he rushes out of the classroom with the girls' words ringing over and over in his head.

_Tried to kill himself…_

_Tried to hang himself in his room…_

This time when he makes it to the bathroom and kneels in front of one of the toilets, it isn't just dry heaving.

\----

It's all white.

It's _too_ white.

Kurt had chosen to come alone, telling his dad that he'd needed to do this by himself, that, awake or not, he'd just needed to be alone with Blaine, if just for a little while. He's still sick with guilt, with his own damn _stupidity_ for believing the boy he's known to lie for other people's benefits before. How could he have done that? Something had been off and he'd picked up on it, and what had he done? He'd still gone home and stared at his dark phone, hoping that Blaine would call, or at least text him.

Kurt tugs his cardigan tighter around his body, hurries past a nurse in baby blue scrubs holding a clipboard. Blaine's dad had told him the room number and the floor and had gotten him cleared with the hospital staff so he could go ahead without any problems.

But the closer he gets, the more doors he glances into as he passes by, seeing sick people, elderly people, young people and people who look like they don't have an ounce of hope left in this world, the more nauseous and less sure about all of this he becomes.

 _Blaine wouldn't be here if I had just_ stayed _instead of trusting him._

How true is that, though? Sure, it would have knocked off one window, but would Blaine still have attempted when his parents went to bed? He still has his antivirals, he could have—

Kurt shakes his head, closing his eyes. He refuses to think past that, refuses to even _entertain_ that idea. Blaine is alive, and awake or not Kurt has to see him, has to see with his own eyes that Blaine's all right—at least physically.

He finally makes it to Blaine's room, and he stops just outside the door, peers inside where it's just Blaine's mom sitting on a chair in the corner. He fixes his hair out of nervous habit, tugs at his clothes until they're straight. He takes deep yoga breaths, prepares himself like he would if he were going out on stage.

Stella looks up when the door opens, and Kurt gives her a thin smile that she returns. He can't help but notice the red puffiness to her eyes, the tired way they seem to sink into her skull. Her thick, shiny hair looks limp and unwashed, and Kurt wonders if she'd even gone home during the night.

"Kurt," she says sincerely, "it's so good to see you."

She pulls him into a hug that Kurt immediately returns the best that he can. "I wish it were under better circumstances," he replies when they part. He smiles at his hackneyed joke and Stella laughs, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

Silently, they both turn to look at the bed where Blaine is still asleep. Kurt winces at the heart monitor and the terribly-colored, ill-fitting gown. He forgets about the reason that Blaine is here until his eyes land on the swath of white gauze wrapped neatly around Blaine's throat; his breath catches as the memory of Karofsky surfaces and brings the bitter taste of bile to the back of Kurt's throat.

He recalls the auditorium, the way he'd pulled Blaine aside later that day and Blaine had promised that he never, _ever_ would do something like that.

 _But everything has changed_ , a tiny voice says at the back of his mind. _He promised you he'd never cheat and he still did._

Stella's hand on Kurt's shoulder surprises him, and he looks back, wide-eyed, to see her smiling tiredly at him. "I'm going to go home for a bit, to shower and change and get something to eat. William already left for work, so you're free to stay with him as long as you want. Blaine might wake up, he might not."

Kurt nods, places his hand over Stella's and squeezes. "Thank you, Mrs. Anderson."

Once the door clicks shut, Kurt stays standing for a few moments, staring at the wall, before he walks over to the chair placed by Blaine's bedside. He hesitates, looking down, and finally takes a seat. The bustle of the hospital is muffled past the door, and the room itself is almost too silent: all Kurt can hear is the beep of Blaine's monitor, Blaine's even, steady breaths, and his own rough, panicked ones.

He reaches out, then stops and pulls back. Should he take Blaine's hand? They're not dating anymore, but they are friends, and Kurt does care about him…

He takes Blaine's hand, relishes in the feel of familiar soft skin in his. He traces over the bumps of Blaine's knuckles, over the strong thickness of his fingers. His nails look a little longer, a little more ragged than usual.

"Hi…" Kurt speaks, but his voice cracks, fades away. He clears his throat, blinks away tears as he takes in Blaine's pale face. With his free hand he touches the softness of the gauze and shivers, his skin tingling uncomfortably at the knowledge of what's under there. "Hi, Blaine. I'm kind of sick of seeing you in the hospital, you know that?" He laughs hollowly, though the memories (a slushie the color of blood, Blaine's palms pressed to his eyes as he'd screamed and cried about the pain, the burn and the scratch, when the nurse had tried to evaluate him) are absolutely nothing to laugh about.

He wets his lips, looks at the drab paint on the walls and the hospital's attempt at interior design. He almost wishes that it was like last time, because last time had been easily fixed with surgery and medication and bed rest. Blaine had been fine once the pain had worn off, and though he'd initially complained about the eye patch he'd grown to get used to it.

But this isn't like that, no matter how hard Kurt wishes. Blaine will heal, of course, and he'll be okay, but physical scars are so different from mental ones. He could get used to this, because it will always be a part of him, but that's just the problem: this is _always_ going to be with him no matter how much time passes.

"I, um, I'm really sorry about leaving you yesterday." Kurt bites his lip as tears sting his eyes. Blaine's hand is so cold, so limp, in his. "I just—I didn't know. And I should have known, but I _didn't_ and you wouldn't be here if I wasn't so stupid and oblivious."

Kurt wipes his eyes, looks at the thick brush of Blaine's lashes against his cheekbones. The blanket moves with Blaine's steady breaths, and Kurt pauses, twines their fingers together. "I know that things aren't going to be the same, and I'm okay with that. Things have to change, right? You've told me that before. And I…I know I'm not able to be around as much now, but I want to be. I still always want to be there for you, whether you're pushing me away or pulling me in close."

He sniffs, stroking a hand over Blaine's hair. "It doesn't matter if you never want to date again—all I care about is _you_. I love you, Blaine. I never stopped. I tried, but I just couldn't. I love you so much. And I can't even…even _pretend_ to understand what you're going through, but I'm gonna try, okay? I'm going to try to be here for you whenever you need it, if you'll have me. I just—I want to know that you're going to be okay." Kurt swallows hard, but the tears creep up on him, and he lets loose, doesn't try to hide his sobbing as he lowers his head, squeezes Blaine's hand tightly as tears slide down his face and his shoulders shake. "God, just please be okay, B. Please be okay."

"I'm okay."

The voice is rough and raspy and unfamiliar; Kurt looks up in shock, wondering if someone had gotten in while he was sobbing, and widens his eyes when he sees that Blaine is awake, his eyes tired but bright as they stare at Kurt with more clarity than he's seen since he got back into Lima. Blaine isn't really smiling, but the corners of his mouth twitch like they want to.

Kurt's lips part in shock. "Blaine?"

Blaine squeezes Kurt's hand, doesn't pull back. The heart monitor picks up slightly like Blaine is nervous. "Hi. Don't be offended when I say that I can't talk long."

Kurt lets out a thin, watery laugh, wiping at his eyes with his free hand. There's so much he wants to say, so many questions he wants to ask, but he has no idea where to even begin. He struggles for a moment, trying to think, until the first thing that comes to mind, the thing that's been there since last night, comes out: "Why?"

Blaine's demeanor changes instantly: the faint light of a smile disappears, clouding over with gray, and he frowns, shifting uncomfortably. He works his hand out of Kurt's, fiddles with the heart monitor attached to his finger and touches the gauze wrapped around his throat like he's remembering. Finally, he just sighs, shaking his head.

"I just…" Blaine trails off, runs his hands over his face. When he lets them fall back to his lap there's a tinge more of redness around his eyes. "I'm just so tired, Kurt."

The words strike a familiar chord, and Kurt hears them, echoing, in a lighter and much more playful tone: _I'm kind of tired_.

The realization hits Kurt so hard he physically recoils back, ignoring Blaine's bemused look. How could he have missed that? Blaine had spelled it out for him yesterday, had given Kurt a silent plea for help that he'd completely misinterpreted.

"Tired?" Kurt parrots as he tries to take this all in.

"Of everything," Blaine clarifies. "Of the stares. Of the whispers and the memories." He sets his jaw, looks out the window. He's silent for a few moments, his throat working as he swallows, until he finally turns his head back around to face Kurt. "Did you know I burned my Cheerios uniform? Right after I got home?"

Kurt blinks in surprise. "No."

Blaine nods, chewing on his lower lip. "I went out back, took some of my dad's lighter fluid, and doused it. My mom came out and freaked and dragged me back inside. But it felt good. Like, really good. Like I was burning away that part of myself." He laughs, sudden and rough and bitter, and it startles Kurt into jumping slightly in his seat. "It didn't work, though. I still remember."

"Oh, Blaine," Kurt murmurs, reaching out. Blaine shakes his head and Kurt drops his hand immediately. He isn't sure what to do at this point, if he should try and help or just let Blaine talk. "I—" Kurt stops at a loss for words, and he feels his face slowly burn red.

Blaine looks at him, smiles softly. When he speaks this time, his voice is rougher, a little dragging and exhausted. "Do you want to know why?"

Kurt nods, his heart racing. He doesn't know what Blaine's going to say, if it's going to be a step forward or a step back. Blaine is wearing a perfect poker face, one he'd told Kurt he'd perfected from years of card games with his dad.

Kurt _wants_ Blaine to be okay because, selfishly, he wants his best friend—maybe even his boyfriend—back. He wants to help Blaine put all of this behind him, wants to move on, get Blaine out of his town where horrible memories lurk around every corner. He wants to try again.

But despite all of Kurt's fantasies, Blaine's answer is real, simple, and painfully honest: "I did it because I knew that I'd never be the same person ever again."

\----

The window is dark as Blaine looks out it, takes in the towering building of the hospital and the faint brightness of the city in the distance. The lights in the parking lot are towering and orange, and Blaine stares at them as he replays his conversation with Kurt today in his head.

He hadn't meant to be so honest—he's spent so much of the past week hiding everything, bottling it up and trying to deny its existence, that it had come as a complete surprise when he just couldn't stop. But, he supposes, Kurt always been who he's told everything, anyway, so there had been something relieving, something natural, about it.

Telling Kurt the reason why had been the hardest part: he's still trying to come to terms with it, is still trying to drop the notion that he can revert back to who he had been over a week ago. The therapy session had made it painfully clear.

Blaine closes his eyes, rubs at his throat as he feels the sting of tears. He's so stupid. He's so silly and foolish and ridiculous—

There's a knock at the door; Blaine turns, expecting to see his parents or maybe Kurt, so it's genuine surprise when his jaw drops and he says, " _Sam_?"

Sam stands in the doorway, looking sheepish and uncomfortable, but he easily meets Blaine's eyes, easily gives him a lopsided smile as he lifts his hand, says, "Hey," like they've just run into each other at Target.

Blaine blinks, wiping his eyes quickly with the back of his hand. He winces when he swallows, says, "W-what are you doing here?"

Sam shrugs, hesitates and then walks fully into the room. He takes residence in the chair at the side of the bed and pushes it back a little. Blaine can't help but notice the dark bags under his eyes. "I heard you were…here."

Blaine nods, tries not to panic. That means the whole school knows, but what else is new? They've known from the beginning and he's only been deluding himself into thinking otherwise. "I—"

"I'm sorry." Sam doesn't waste time, and the words burst from his mouth like built-up water from a dam. Blaine raises his eyebrows in surprise, sits back a little in the bed. "I'm sorry I didn't try to come see you earlier. I'm sorry I couldn't help you. I'm—I'm sorry that this had to happen to you, Blaine. I really am. "

"Sam—"

"I'm sorry." Blaine's surprised to see that Sam is crying, a lone tear trickling down his cheek as his eyes, wild and red, stare frantically at Blaine like he's been bottling this up for too long.

Blaine quickly takes Sam's hand, says, " _Hey_ ," as sharply as he can manage. When he regains Sam's attention he says, "You were there. Okay? I don't…really want to talk about this but if it hadn't been for you I—I don't know what would have happened. You did what you could. You don't need to apologize for anything, Sam. You're still my best friend."

"I couldn't help you—"

Blaine swallows hard, squeezes his eyes shut and tries to push away the memories. He takes deep breaths, pushes away the panic attack he can feel building up, tells himself that there are not hands at his hips, that his bruises have faded and _he's okay_. "No one could, all right? I did it because…because I knew I had to. I didn't want any of you to get hurt."

He feels nauseous just talking about it, but he pushes through it, thinks about how Sam looks so distressed, how he probably needs this validation almost as much as Blaine does.

Sam sniffs, looks at Blaine with tear-filled eyes, and Blaine almost wants to laugh at how heart-to-heart this has become, because he's almost positive that Sam didn't come here with the intention of it turning into this. "I'm really glad you came to visit me," Blaine says, squeezing Sam's hand before letting it go. "And for not, like, judging me for being stupid and deciding that summer is the perfect reason to wear scarves all the time."

There's a pause, then Sam smiles, laughs, and after a moment Blaine does too. It feels out of place, being this happy; even if it's just a few moments and he has to stop because of his throat, Blaine feels better than he has in too long, and for the first time he lets himself think positively about the future, about the road still ahead of him and the healing processes he'll have to go through.

He's not alone, and, finally, he's realizing it.

\----

Kurt is back bright and early the next morning, a cup of coffee in his hand and the brightest smile that he can manage on his face. Blaine is sitting up in bed when he reaches the room, his head turned to face the window.

"I hear Sam came to visit you last night after I left," Kurt says in lieu of greeting.

Blaine startles, turning around. Kurt catches a glimpse of a pained, distant look before it's pushed away, erased and replaced with a small smile. It tightens the knots in Kurt's stomach, makes him realize that, though they're finally making progress, it's going to be a long, long time before Blaine completely heals from this. He's in good spirits now, but Kurt knows that there will be hiccups, setbacks, fights and relapses. But he's prepared, he's ready, because he loves Blaine, romantically and platonically, and he'll be whichever one fits best for however long Blaine will have him.

"Yeah," Blaine whispers. "Sorry," he adds. "It's kind of sore today."

Kurt just nods and pulls the chair closer to Blaine's bed. "If you need ice chips just say the word."

"I thought for sure Sam was disgusted by the thought of me," Blaine says quietly a few minutes later.

Kurt hurriedly swallows a hot gulp of coffee, wincing as it goes down. He looks incredulously at Blaine, studies the sheepish, almost bashful look on his face. " _What_?"

Blaine hesitates, then shrugs and nods. He fiddles with the edge of the thin hospital blanket. "He hadn't talked to me since…then, and he never texted me or called me or even tried to see me. I thought that what had really happened had finally sunk in and he didn't want to look at me anymore."

"Blaine, Sam's been so worried about you," Kurt says, nodding when Blaine's eyebrows rise. "Yes, he has. I had coffee with him right after our last big fight. He just…didn't know how to talk to you."

Blaine scoffs, rolling his eyes. His jaw sets in a way that Kurt knows means he's about to cry. "Yeah, because _that_ makes it better."

"Blaine, come on. You know it isn't like that."

Blaine bristles. "Yeah, well _you_ haven't had to walk into a building knowing that everyone there knows you've been—" He stops, shakes his head. "People are treating me differently, Kurt. They're talking about me and avoiding me. Not one of the glee club has really talked to me, not even Tina. I avoided Mr. Schue because I was too embarrassed to see him after he'd seen me like _that_."

Kurt takes a deep breath. "You're right. I'm sorry. I don't know what you're feeling, or what's going on. I just want you to be okay. I want to be here to help you get through this in whatever way that I can."

Blaine is silent as he tugs at the gauze around his neck, runs a hand through springy, ungelled hair. He meets Kurt's eyes for a half-second before he's immediately looking away again. Kurt lets him think, waits for him to speak: there's nothing he can do, no more than he can say.

"I can't run from this anymore, Kurt," Blaine whispers. His voice trembles, cracks, and for the first time he's the one to reach out and seek Kurt's hand. He's shaking as he wraps his fingers around Kurt's, holds onto them like they're a lifeline. "It's killing me, and I've spent too long running from things that I can't control. I ran from my old school, I ran from the truth of who I was at the beginning, and now I'm running from this."

"Blaine," Kurt starts, but a minute shake of Blaine's head cuts him off, and he just waits, listens, stares at the tired lines of Blaine's face, the way he suddenly seems to be ten years older than the person that Kurt first saw a week ago.

"The truth is," Blaine says, sucking in a deep breath, "I haven't been the same person for a long time—not since I met you. You changed me when I was trying to change you, and I should have realized then what it meant." He smiles, looking over, and though the depths of his eyes are troubled, haunted, Kurt sees the same warmth of love he'd fallen in love with. "And I'm sorry I've put you through this. I'm just…scared. I've felt so along for so long."

"You're not," Kurt says immediately, scooting closer and blinking away his tears. "No matter what's happened to you, or what will happen to you, I'm right here. And I'm never leaving you alone again."

The hug comes as a surprise: Blaine tugs him in, and it's brief, but it feels revolutionary, like a life-changer, when they pull back. Blaine eyes are red and watery, and he laughs, averting his eyes as he looks down at his lap. Kurt is still in shock and blinks stupidly at Blaine, wondering if what just happened was a dream or if Blaine really did just initiate physical contact.

"I'm still not okay," Blaine says, slowly. He meets Kurt's eyes again, and there's something burning determined and fierce in there; when he continues, his voice is suddenly nervous and unsure and so very childlike. "But I want to—to talk about what happened? I don't think I'll be able to talk about much, but…"

Kurt's heart jolts, and he can't stop the little inhale of a gasp. The knowledge that Blaine trusts him with this, that he _can_ trust him, feels like the best and yet most terrifying honor he's ever been given. From here Kurt isn't even sure where they'll go or where they even could go, but he does know that, right now, Blaine _needs_ him, and it's not going to be easy for either of them. but this is healing, this is what Blaine needs to go through to get better.

He nods, takes Blaine's hand again. "I'm here for you, Blaine. I always am. I promise."

"I love you." Blaine's voice cracks, his lips thinning slightly as his chin wobbles. He looks absolutely terrified.

Kurt feels his pulse race at those words, so sorely missed, and he can't hide his stupidly large grin as he says, "I love you, too."

Blaine begins to talk.


	10. Oh How The Mighty Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that I'm officially done with the meat of the story, I promised everyone who follows me on Tumblr that I'd write a series of drabbles and prompts for this 'verse that will jump around in time and vary in length, and this was sent to me and I figured that it'd be the perfect way to start out this series:
> 
>  
> 
> **ateotw prompt #1: what about the first time blaine tries to have sex with kurt but ends up not being able to get through with it? maybe it can be set in a time after he’s able to have makeout/cuddling sessions with and sometimes he can feel kurt’s hard but physically restraining himself not to push blaine**

Summer swells up hot and sweltering in New York in a way that it doesn’t in Ohio. It’s Blaine’s first here, and, in a way, it’s Kurt’s first, too, which lights something pleasantly warm in Blaine’s belly. It helps him relate, having this thing that he and Kurt can fully experience together. His therapist says that’s good. Blaine still isn’t sure.

But he has made progress in the last couple of months, which his therapist _and_ Kurt say is good. He keeps it in his notebook: every setback, every progression, every realization. Since he’d left Ohio last month after graduation his setbacks have been less and less. It gives him hope, helps something warm and bright and promising peek through the suffocating, sticky blackness.

He and Kurt have been working at this, spending long weeks working up to unexpected touches (Blaine often still flinches, but the nauseating panic doesn’t rise up, choking, in his throat anymore), cuddling (some days are easier than others, depending on where Blaine’s head is at, if he’s taken his meds, if he can distinguish memory from reality), and kissing. Being away from it all, starting fresh and new and on his own, helps, but there are still some days when Blaine just can’t get out of bed, when he can’t stop crying and remembering and hating himself. Those days are the hardest of all.

Kissing is a hurdle they’d passed early and fairly easily. Blaine’s always loved it, remembering slow, lazy days spent at his house or Kurt’s learning each other, memorizing each other, loving each other. Things like this Blaine holds on to, keeps it close to his heart and savors its invisible flavor on his tongue. Things like this, Blaine feels safe.

This hot summer afternoon, weeks before class starts, finds Blaine sprawled out on their bed, Kurt hovering carefully above him. Today is a good day, one of the best Blaine’s had in weeks, and Kurt lets him set the pace after a quiet, hesitant, “You’re sure?”

When Blaine says yes, grabs Kurt’s waist and rolls them over, he sees nothing but proud admiration in Kurt’s eyes. Blaine taking initiative is still rare—the responsibility scares him, triggers things he’s both felt and hasn’t felt in a greasy, slippery churning tide—but each positive day in his journal, each day where he can say _things might be okay again_ spurs him on. He _wants_ to get better. He _wants_ to love Kurt like he used to. His therapist says taking initiative is good, healing, that it will help him realize that he’s in control of his life and the things that happen in it.

Kurt moans into his mouth, kisses back a little harder when Blaine squeezes his waist, arches up slightly and drags his tongue across Kurt’s lower lip. A rush fills Blaine, spreading from head to toe. He’s hard, aching in his jeans, and his head is spinning, unfocused with lust. It’s still a little scary sometimes, going past that line from innocent kissing to full-on making out with the intent to go further. Blaine’s felt it, afternoons when they’ve both let themselves go a little further than intended—Kurt hard against his hip or thigh, the way Kurt will immediately pull back when he realizes what’s happening.

It’s confusing, both wanting and not wanting it. The first time it had happened, before they’d set serious boundaries for sessions like this, Blaine had panicked, his mind flashing strobe-light quick with images and emotions.

Since then Kurt has been careful, and Blaine has been grateful for the cool-off periods, the reassuring periods when Kurt would ask him questions, _are you okay_ and _do we need to stop_ ; now, though, he’s warring with frustration. He wants to go further, wants to push all of this aside and just be normal again. He feels the restraint, sees it in Kurt’s eyes, the tightness of his jaw and the rigidity of his body. He hears it in Kurt’s inhales, in the way he cuts kisses off in the middle like he’s trying not to—what? Push Blaine? It’s what Blaine wants— _needs_.

And Blaine says it today, breaking the kiss with a slick sucking sound to breathe deep into the silken skin of Kurt’s cheek, his hand tangling in Kurt’s hair, tightening like Kurt’s his anchor and the bed is the riptide about to drag him away: “I want to go further.”

Immediately Kurt is still, tensing, his breath sucked in sharply and held there, second after second after second, until he finally releases it in a _whoosh_. He moves away, looks at Blaine with rounded blue eyes, asking, and Blaine nods. His heart is pounding furiously against his ribcage.

“Are…are you…sure?” Kurt asks slowly. The hesitation between the words is like he isn’t sure what to say, isn’t sure where to go. Kurt, out of everyone else, out of his mom and his dad and his therapist, can tell when Blaine is lying. Maybe it’s been like this since the incident before Blaine had finally decided to get better; maybe it’s been longer than that. Who knows?

Blaine nods again, bites his lip. He lets go of Kurt’s hair, slides his hands down the familiar broad planes of Kurt’s back to the slim taper of his waist. He holds on to familiar warmth, knows that if he were to seek upward right now he’d find Kurt full and hard and aching in his jeans.

“I want this,” Blaine whispers. He’s terrified, but he’s also excited. Long ago he’d accepted that his old self was gone, that it was up to his new self, his damaged self, to build a chrysalis and transform. This is another step, another tiny fissure in what’s preventing him from becoming that new person. The idea of bare skin, of vulnerability, makes the edges of his mind fuzz static with panic, but he pushes himself through it like he’s pushed himself through every other hurdle. This is with Kurt. _For_ Kurt. And for himself. “I—I do, Kurt. I really do. I’m…I’m ready.”

It’s hollow, almost, and his words trip and stumble over themselves, but there is inherent truth in them. There is honesty, desire, need. The idea of sex isn’t as terrifying now as it was a few months ago.

He says, without intending to, “I want to show you how much I love you.”

The words hold in the air of seconds, both of them silent until Blaine sees the faint shine of tears in Kurt’s eyes; then Kurt is leaning down, claiming Blaine’s mouth both hard and sweet at the same time. Wetness hits Blaine’s cheek, slips down it.

Pulling back, Kurt presses the circle of his lips to Blaine’s cheek, whispers, “I love you, too, Blaine. You’re so brave, baby, and I love you so, so much.”

Then they’re both crying, clutching onto each other like the worlds is ending, like nothing matters more in this moment. Blaine doesn’t know what’s going to happen, how this is going to end, but he doesn’t allow himself to dwell on it, doesn’t allow himself to think as he kisses Kurt again, arching up as he pushes Kurt’s hips down.

The hard press of Kurt’s cock, almost forgotten after so long, sends jolting sparks rushing through Blaine’s body; he gasps, letting out a sharp, surprised moan before Kurt is kissing him again.

Kurt’s hand on Blaine’s chest makes Blaine shiver, his cock twitching in his jeans. Next to his ear, lips slick and pliable, Kurt asks, “Is this still okay?” as his fingers go for the buttons, undoing each one slow-slow-slow, giving Blaine time to back out if he needs to.

“It’s okay,” Blaine gasps, nodding. He moans again, pushing past the slight hint of panic at the skim of Kurt’s delicate fingers over his skin. This is okay. It’s just Kurt. He can do this. He has to be able to do this.

Kurt kisses his cheek, then his neck, and soon Blaine’s shift is sliding to his thighs, fluttering open and useless. He feels vulnerable, but with Kurt here—covering him, grounding him, protecting him—Blaine feels…okay.

“I’m gonna undo your pants now, okay, B?” Kurt asks, pressing another kiss to Blaine’s cheek. His breathing is heavy, harsh, and it’s like it’s all around Blaine, cocooning him, covering him. Blaine twitches, his limbs moving involuntarily like they want to get his body away, but he grits his teeth, says _okay_ and adds, in his mind, _it’s Kurt just Kurt calm down Blaine calm down it’s okay_.

Kurt’s hand slides from Blaine’s solar plexus, creeping slow, slow. Blaine feels gooseflesh rise on his skin, feels the nerves shoot and crawl out from under the soft pads of Kurt’s ( _innocent this is Kurt it’s nothing but innocent_ ) fingers. The warm, pulsing desire begins to fade quickly as Kurt undoes Blaine’s button, then his zipper.

_I’m in New York. This is my boyfriend doing this to me. This is not McKinley, April 2013. This is New York, August 2013. I am safe. I am okay. Nothing will hurt me here._

Kurt’s fingers just under his waistband, nails scratching lightly over trimmed pubic hair, his voice in Blaine’s ear, “You’re doing so well, honey. So good. That’s it.”

_"God, that’s it," the man groans, gripping hard to Blaine’s hip with his free hand. Blaine bites his lip, another tear streaking down his red face, but he doesn’t look away from Sam. His hands clench, nails scratching at the linoleum, but he keeps his mouth tightly shut even as strangled sound after strangled sound leaves his throat._

It happens quickly, suddenly, like lightning across the sky or the sweet nothingness of sleep: Blaine screams, _no_ or _get away_ or _leave me alone_ , blinks, and then Kurt is on the floor and Blaine is curled up near the headboard, his knees drawn up and his body trembling violently. He thinks he might be sick. He thinks he might be—he doesn’t even know what he might be anymore. There is nothing but muddling panic. How does he breathe? He’s forgotten how to breathe. Is that him making those wet sucking sounds? Is that him crying?

“Blaine?”

Kurt’s voice, gentle but also worried, terrified. Why is Kurt here? Kurt wasn’t at McKinley. Kurt is supposed to be in New York.

“Blaine, calm down. It’s me. It’s Kurt. You’re in New York. It’s August, 2013. This is our apartment. We’re the only two in here.”

Blaine tries to suck in a sufficient breath, but it’s impossible. There’s a vice, cold and leaden, around his lungs. Vaguely he thinks he might be hyperventilating.

“Blaine, sweetheart, listen to me. You’re okay. No one is trying to hurt you. It’s just me. It’s just Kurt. I love you.”

Blaine isn’t sure when he begins to calm down, when the panic begins to finally subside. The veil is gone, clearing his thoughts, and he can finally see the rumbled sheets, Kurt on the floor, his eyes huge and worried; he’s aware of his own tears, of the way he’s trembling.

Then he’s spewing, slurred and fast and over-and-over, his body contracting as he hiccups, “I thought I was okay I thought I was I’m so sorry I’m so stupid I’m such a failure I thought I could do it for you I just wanted you to know how much I love you—”

The panic is seamlessly replaced with hysterics, with chest-deep sobs and a dull, flaring aching behind Blaine’s eyes. He wraps his arms around his knees, feels his face contort as he cries, apologizes again and again.

The dip of the bed is hesitant, and a minute or two later Kurt’s arms are around Blaine’s shoulders. Instead of flinching, of running away, Blaine turns easily into that familiar embrace. He’s okay now. Kurt is here. Kurt will make things better.

Kurt does, whispering and stroking over Blaine’s hair, holding him close and rocking them as Blaine fights the images, the demons, the voices and the phantasmal pain. The idea of something, Kurt’s saying (or maybe it’s Blaine, he doesn’t know anymore, just wants to sink deeper and deeper down into this blissful dark void of nothingness where his thoughts don’t mass together in a high-speed clutter) is very different from the reality of it.

“Write it down,” Kurt is saying, his palm broad and soothing over Blaine’s heaving back. “You’re going to have to write this down in your journal.”

Like he can feel like, see it, the fissures in Blaine’s glittering chrysalis fuse back together just a little bit more.


End file.
